Priests/believers in the army?

[pgrmdave]

It was a culture clash involving everything from economics to theology. And the sides can be identified in general by their religious orientations. So it can not be claimed that the difference was not valid.

 

They can also be identified in general by their accent, living conditions, geographical locations (the obvious one), diet, ethnic background, and many other things, religion is simply how you choose to differentiate them because it helps your argument. The fact that their religious background were different does not prove that it was a religious war any more than it was a war of the accents - Boston vs. Richmond.

[Freethinker]

Are you implying, Freethinker, that these criminals, had they not been religious, would not have commited crimes?

The tricky part, as Linda was pointing out, is structuring the statement so it is actually supported by the data correctly.

 

We are talking statistical averages. To apply a statistical average to an individual is to lack understanding of averages.

 

If we take the statistics at face value, that there is almost a complete absence of non-believers as inmates, that they are statistically extremely under-represented in the general prison population, then yes, people on average will be less likely to commit a crime if they hold a non-belief personal philosophy.

 

But perhaps it is the other way a round. Not that a person that is NOT a christian is less likely to commit crimes. But that a person that is less likely to commit crimes is less liable to accept a Christian belief. Maybe it is not a lack of belief that developes a more moral stance, but the development of the more moral stance that promotes the Atheism.

 

It's hard to say which one. But there are other studies that lend insights.

Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi ("The Psychology of Religious Belief")- religion fosters greater authoritarianism, dogmatism, suggestability, dependance, inadequecy and anxiety.

 

C.D. Batson & W.L. Ventis ("The Religious Experience: A Social- Psychological Religion" Oxford University Press)- "the relationship between religious involvement and mental health is negative rather than positive."

 

J.E. Dittes (The Psychology of Religion")- religion is associated with a weak and constricted ego.

 

L.B. Brown ("The Psychology of Religious Belief")- confidence about religion correlates with conservatism, dogmatism and authoritarianism.

[Freethinker]

Does anyone remember the original reason for this thread?

Hey I just had a post in which I actually discussed it! At least I am trying! :-)

Thanks so much for helping keep this topic close to its origins. ;)

Ya it started on Hypography and has stayed here ever since.

[zadojla]

snip...If we take the statistics at face value, that there is almost a complete absence of non-believers as inmates, that they are statistically extremely under-represented in the general prison population, then yes, people on average will be less likely to commit a crime if they hold a non-belief personal philosophy. snip...

 

But perhaps we should not take the statistics at face value. We also need to know if there is an advantage for a prisoner in declaring a religious preference in a prison setting, perhaps as simple as extra time out of his cell to attend services. Or it may be in data gathering. I have been faced with forms that did not offer my religious preference as a choice. While unlikely perhaps, the possibility that the data are biased in this way could falsify any conclusions based upon them.

[IrishEyes]

We are talking statistical averages. To apply a statistical average to an individual is to lack understanding of averages.

 

Again, if you want to discuss this particular off-shoot, START A NEW TOPIC. I have asked you once to move this particluar part of the discussion into a new topic. Instead of continuing to post MORE in this thread, please start a new thread based on this idea. There is more than enough information represented to warrant its very own thread.

 

Again, thanks for your help!

[Freethinker]

Is there a standard philosophy for non-believers?

That is exactly what I was trying to get across before.

 

NO, there is not any standard philosophy which fills in all the whole left if something like Christianity is pulled out. Atheism is a "lack of" issue. It only says what one DOESN'T have.

I'm not being argumentative, but isn't everyone's moral standards taken mostly from the culture in which they were raised,

You weren't around in the "60's were you? :-)

Some societies are more mobile than others. In thought as well. And a more open soceity (relative to thought diversity) breeds lack of belief. While constrained societies promote believer authority structures.

not necessarily in the religion, although that can be a part of it? I find the statistics in your favor, but as I remind my friends, crime goes up when ice cream goes on sale, in other words, statistics can be true and still lie, so I am often wary of them.

Stats can be wrong or they can be misapplied. But if they are true they are true.

[Freethinker]

You never gave me another war to analyze,

Why should I? You never showed that religion was NOT a factor.

 

*I* never claimed that economics was NOT a factor. Proving that Economics was one of the factors does not in any way remove religious culpability.

 

The FACT that the "sides" can be indentified by their" religious orientation" PROVES a "religious orientation"

I'd be glad to show you that most major conflicts since the Renaissance have been secular wars, and I believe even wars like the Crusades, in which it would seem on the surface to be entirely religous, were fought more for economic reasons than religion, although it was justified with Christianity.

Again, you are arguing a non-issue. I never said that religion was the ONLY reason. But you can not seperate religious ideology even from the economic drives of any given area. The local religious culture can often have major effects on local economic issues.

world war one, world war two,

Here's some good examples. Both WWI and WWII had their beginings in the religious mindfield of the Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Muslem region of Coratia, Austria, Bosnia,...

 

RememberArchduke Ferdinan? You would never try to claim there wa no religious motivation there!

[Freethinker]

The Supreme Court has the job of interpreting the Constitution, and they are not bound by the words of someone from a long time ago

So now the Supreme Court is not bound by the words contained in the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights. "the words of someone from a long time ago" It get stranger all the time!

 

The Supreme Court has forged a three-part "Lemon test" (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971) to determine if a law is permissible under the First-Amendment religion clauses. (1) A law must have a secular purpose. (2) It must have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits religion. (3) It must avoid excessive entanglement of church and state.

[Fishteacher73]

But, all religious considerations aside, that is exactly what is being done with American children in schools. It is caused by "zero-tolerance" violence policies that label a child who defends himself/herself against bullying or other physical threat as just as guilty as the aggressor. They are told, "You should have told a teacher", and punished as severely as the aggressor. Years and years ago, when I was in school, if someone bothered you and wouldn't stop, you popped him. The teachers understood that, and punishment was differentiated, depending on the circumstances.

 

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine's Trenchcaot mafia) popped those that were picking on them. I guess your ideals worked...they aren't being picked on anymore. It is wrong to condone ANY sort of violence when other options are present. Schools have been continually pushed to teach more than just the "three r's". Teachers (I know, I am one) are now expected to essentially teach morals/inter-personal skills, etc. because for many students this direction is lacking at home. One must foster an atmosphere where VIOLENCE IS NOT TOLERATED to show that there are alternatives to lashing out in a physical manner. Without this, we have a snowballing effect of the violence of the children. (This can be seen in the escalation of gang violence in LA in the early 90's). While "zero-tolerance" is not a quick fix, it is a long-term solution to a problem that has no quick fixes. One can start to see the impact this has had in the decline of violence in thepreviously mentioned South Central.

[pgrmdave]

I think Zad's point was that the punishment shouldn't be the same for an agressor and the defender, not that there shouldn't be punishment. I was teased, mocked, and subjected to a lot of peer ridicule for a few years and I never became violent, and I regret it. If I had stood up to them on their level, and shown that I wouldn't be pushed around, I believe that my school wouldn't have felt like such a terrible place. I realize that this seems counter-intuitive, violence making kids safer, but the problem is that many policies only punish physical violence, which has created a breed of bully that verbally taunts and berates others, to the point of making them afraid to go to school, while the tormentor knows that they cannot be hurt by their victim, and the victim feels helpless. Violence is not usually the answer, but there are times when it becomes necessary.

[IrishEyes]

I was teased, mocked, and subjected to a lot of peer ridicule for a few years and I never became violent, and I regret it. If I had stood up to them on their level, and shown that I wouldn't be pushed around, I believe that my school wouldn't have felt like such a terrible place.

dave, please consider staerting a new topic with the above quote as your starting theme. It seems to be very interesting, and food for lots of thought, and very fruitful discussion. I look forward to reading about it in a new thread.

[zadojla]

snip... One must foster an atmosphere where VIOLENCE IS NOT TOLERATED to show that there are alternatives to lashing out in a physical manner. Without this, we have a snowballing effect of the violence of the children. (This can be seen in the escalation of gang violence in LA in the early 90's). While "zero-tolerance" is not a quick fix, it is a long-term solution to a problem that has no quick fixes. One can start to see the impact this has had in the decline of violence in thepreviously mentioned South Central.

 

My point is not that violence is good. My point is that for an entire generation, children have been taught to appeal to authority rather than resolve issues on their own. Furthermore, violence is tolerated, but only the government-sanctioned kind. A parent can be put in jail for spanking a five-year-old that refuses to obey. Try refusing to provide documentation at a traffic stop, and see what happens.

 

You can see the same "appeal-to-authority" effect in children's sports. Now, virtually all games are played in controlled leagues with grownups in charge. If you hand a group of kids a ball and tell them to go play, they have no idea how to begin. They can't agree on rule modifications, they can't choose teams, and they can't resolve conflicts.

 

What kind of grownups might they be? I'm a manager of a 24x7 operation with a staff of 29, and I expect my staff to be able to assign work, deal with emergencies, and resolve disagreements in my absence. They do, but 80% of them are over 40, and about half of them are over 50. I would be surprised if a group of unsupervised 20 year old workers could do the same.

[Fishteacher73]

So you are implying that the ability to be violent produces better leaders? (to a degree I can see it, both Hitler and Stalin were VERY EFFECTIVE leaders).

 

But aside from that, are you stating that those that use a knee-jerk primitive reaction to resort to violence develop better cognitive skills that allow them to asses situations with better acuity, as opposed to someone that has learned to examine a situation and logically come up with an equitable solution for all, without using the archaic hormonal fight or flight mechanism?

 

I can see no corellation in the information you present. To compare a 20 year old's experience and abilities to someone that has 2.5 times the experience is useless. You are speaking of apples and oranges. The analysis need to be on what did that 50 year old do at work in 1974? Cocaine, disco dancing, and wife swaping?

[IrishEyes]

If I am reading and understanding what zad is saying, I agree with it. It seems that he's implying that the zero-tolerance policy is creating a bunch of people that run to authority figures for answers, instead of searching for the answers themselves. Instead of learning to solve problems on their own, which sometimes *might* include violence, children are told to go find a grown-up, and thus they lose the opportunity to figure out how to deal with different types of conflicts. That means that when they are adults, they have no problem solving experiences to fall back on, and find simple things (like perhaps self-motivation) very difficult.

 

I don't think he's trying to compare apples and oranges. I think that he's trying to semonstrate that two groups of people, raised in very different social atmospheres, handle things in very different ways. Maybe instead of comparing a 20 year old to a 50 year old, the comparison should be 2 20 year olds raised in different areas of the same country, where the zero-tolerance policies were different. Or maybe home-schoolers vs. public school children. Or inner-city vs. urban. With each, however, there are more factors to consider. But they would at least eliminate age as a reason, and therefore invalidate Fish's argument. Of course, that's not to say that someone else wouldn't step in with a different argument... ;)

[beccareb]

I don't think my father is giving kids enough credit. As much as adults think children rely on them to resolve conflicts, most conflicts are had and resolved without adults even knowing. Only extreme cases get to adults, and even then it's after the fact a lot of the time.

In eighth grade I hit a girl who had been torturing me all year (because I was diabetic); I never had really complained about her. The first my parents really heard about it was when the principal called my house to tell them I was suspended. I guess it also depends on the parents though, my punishment the next involved going out to lunch with my mother and multiple high-fives from my father.

[zadojla]

Irish Eyes has it right. I am concerned about appeal to authority as the only way to resolve conflicts. I do not want generations of children who were taught this is the only way.

 

snip...But aside from that, are you stating that those that use a knee-jerk primitive reaction to resort to violence develop better cognitive skills that allow them to asses situations with better acuity, as opposed to someone that has learned to examine a situation and logically come up with an equitable solution for all, without using the archaic hormonal fight or flight mechanism?

 

I'm sure people who respect and follow authority would have been fully appreciated by Hitler and Stalin. Wasn't Adolf Eichmann "just following orders?" And trying to find an "equitable solution for all" was less than useful for their victims.

 

snip... The analysis need to be on what did that 50 year old do at work in 1974? Cocaine, disco dancing, and wife swaping?

 

I checked your birthdate in your profile, and you were not there to see. Those are stereotypes, just like all kids in the 60's were hippies, or all Gen X'ers go to raves and take Ecstasy. I was there, and most people in their 20's worked hard, tried to get ahead, and looked for someone to share their life with, just like generations before and after.

 

And Becca, you're right, too, of course, but didn't you both receive the same punishment?

[Fishteacher73]

With each, however, there are more factors to consider. But they would at least eliminate age as a reason, and therefore invalidate Fish's argument. Of course, that's not to say that someone else wouldn't step in with a different argument... ;)

 

Which is exactly what I was saying, we are trying to comparing two data sets with way too many variables. That was my point. That reasonably valid comparisons need to be just about the same except for the questioned variable. If too many factors are in the mix, you can not draw any conclusive connection to any one variable.

 

 

My stereotyping was facetious, noting the stereo-typing you were drawing on for gen y.