Theistic and atheistic influences on society

[modest]

Essay answered the inherited trait question very well, so I will refrain.

Originally Posted by questor

Religion was not doing these things...people were doing these things.... Do you know of any religious teachings that advocate witch burning or slavery?

Killing witches is advocated in the bible. There are 36 offenses that warrant killing the offender outlined from Genesis to Deuteronomy. Some of them such as not sacrificing to any God except the God of Abraham was correctly interpreted by puritans in America to justify killing "witches".

Slavery is advocated in the bible by Jesus. It can be found in the parable of the faithful servant.

So the answer is yes, I do know of religious teachings that advocate these things - the bible.

Originally Posted by questor

And why would you criticise them when you have contended that all people are inherently moral?

First off, I was using those examples to prove that morality changes over time and "religious" morality lags behind the social changes in morality. I wasn't criticizing anything.

Secondly, there is a big difference between saying morality is an inherent part of humanity (ie all people think some things are good and some are bad) and saying everyone is (or acts) morally. You are under the mistaken impression that atheists (of which I am one) think it's ok to do whatever feels good. That they all believe in making up their own personal morality that justifies whatever they want.

This is not the case, and if you honestly think this is my position after the lengths I've gone through to explain it then I wonder if you are capable of understanding what I'm saying at all.

Essay, I see no reason to continue this discussion. I'm done

If you develop your position to the point of being able to support it (or at least offer some kind of argument toward it) then I'd be interested in hearing it. But, if it's just going to the same trolling then I welcome its end.

~modest

[Moontanman]

One thing that's a plus for atheists is that children are much more likely to be molested in theistic households than atheistic ones.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

One thing that's a plus for atheists is that children are much more likely to be molested in theistic households than atheistic ones.

Better provide a source for this claim, MTM!

Though I suspect it’s true, I also suspect that, after controlling for factors such as education, income, marital status and alcohol, licit and illicit drug use, the correlation between religiosity and pedophilia won’t be significant. We must be careful not to confuse correlation with causation, or fail to note that extreme religiosity correlates strongly with poverty and lack of education, factors that are causes of various maladaptive behaviors.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Better provide a source for this claim, MTM!

Though I suspect it’s true, I also suspect that, after controlling for factors such as education, income, marital status and alcohol, licit and illicit drug use, the correlation between religiosity and pedophilia won’t be significant. We must be careful not to confuse correlation with causation, or fail to note that extreme religiosity correlates strongly with poverty and lack of education, factors that are causes of various maladaptive behaviors.

So I am being held to a higher standard than others on this list?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

So I am being held to a higher standard than others on this list?

Everyone’s required to back up his or her claims. Well-defined claims like

Originally Posted by Moontanman

One thing that's a plus for atheists is that children are much more likely to be molested in theistic households than atheistic ones.

, which contradict the intuitive understanding of many readers, especially need to follow this rule.

You’ll also notice the many blue boxes that appear next to your name, indicating that you’re one of the most respected member of hypography, compared to the red boxes next to the names of others in this thread, indicating that they are little respected. You’ve shown an ability to meet a high standard, so, unlike some who have not, I and others expect you to continue meeting it when it's important to do so.

This thread has a lot of very low quality posts. Rather than considering this license to abandon our rules and standards, I think it should prompt us to extra effort to uphold them.

Also, this is an interesting, unobvious claim, for which I and other serious readers would honestly like to see supporting evidence. I suspect, but am far from sure, that it is supported by evidence, so backing it up is especially important.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

One thing that's a plus for atheists is that children are much more likely to be molested in theistic households than atheistic ones.

I made this sensational claim to point out what I consider to be an attack on the basis of this forum. I have been here long enough to be quite fond of this forum. I throughly enjoy discussing a wide range of subjects and listening to intelligent arguments that either support or deny any and all claims. Lately I've seen the very rules we rely on being flaunted by people who have no use what so ever for evidence especially if it doesn't support their version of the truth. I see misdirection, innuendo, obfuscation, bull shit and out right lies being used to confuse and direct these conversations in directions that have noting to do with truth, evidence or even information. Anything seems to go as long as the agenda of the person involved is served. I expect this silly stuff from ignorant people who don't know better but lately these tactics have been used by other wise intelligent people to further an agenda of politics, religion, and anti-science. Yes, my post was totally nothing but scandalous slander, bull shit, and innuendo It is also almost certainly true. Do I know that atheists are less likely to molest their children? Of course not, I didn't say that, I said that children were less likely to be molested in atheist house holds than in theistic house holds. This is as I pointed out total bull shit it is also true. How is this possible? through the tactics currently being used in many posts to further an agenda of creationism, politics, and anti-science. there are so few atheistic house holds that it is certainly true that if even every atheistic house hold molested children they would still be less than the theistic house holds where this takes place. it is much more difficult to prove claims wrong than is it to prove them correct. when some one makes these sensational claims via innuendos and obfuscation we should respond as we would when out right lies are are being used. Anything less denigrates the entire forum.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

One thing that's a plus for atheists is that children are much more likely to be molested in theistic households than atheistic ones.

Originally Posted by CraigD

Better provide a source for this claim, MTM!

Though I suspect it’s true...

Indeed, it seems to be:


SpringerLink - Journal Article

Religious Affiliations Among Adult Sexual Offenders

This article examines associations between self-reported religious affiliations and official offense histories among 111 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. Four categories of religiosity were devised according to self-reported continuities and discontinuities in life-course religious affiliations: atheists, dropouts, converts, and stayers. ANCOVAs indicated that stayers (those who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood) had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups. Results challenge assumptions that religious involvement should, as with other crime, serve to deter sexual offending behavior. Results are discussed in terms of social control and situational theories of crime.

I also appreciated Moonman's comments about the simple numbers involved here, how there are more religious people in general, and hence more crimes by said religious people. Something like 80-90% of the country self-identifies with some sort of religion, so it's not surprising that religious are more involved with sexual crimes against children.

However, with that said, many religious teachings attempt to directly suppress our natural sexual urges, and that inhibition tends to lead to more acts committed in order to release those urges. It's like holding a balloon full of air under the water. The harder you press it down, the more forcefully and unexpectedly it pops back to the surface.

Further, all one must do is recall the issues with Catholic priests and child molestation to bring into perspective the significant anchoring effect religiosity has on this data.


Finding data like this is part of the reason why I have so many of those blue boxes to which Craig referred above.

[Essay]

INow!
I just took Moontanman's comment as rhetorical hyperbole; simply meant, even if not completely correct, to point out that religious folks don't have a lock on morality.
But I was motivated to do a bit of web surfing too. You've got a more relevant answer, but I ran across some curious stuff.
Hope it's okay to post this much crap at once. It's all just copied off the web, and not meant to prove anything; but just to be scanned by folks for anything of interest.
...begin scanning now:

Cookie Absent
National Survey of the Sexual Trauma Experiences of Catholic Nuns
!!!
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http://journals.tums.ac.ir/upload_files/pdf/433.pdf
"Child Abuse in the Family: An Analytical Study"
Although child abuse and misbehaviour can be found among all types of families and social classes(8) with different socio-economic status, it is more practised in lower social classes, as it is shown in the present study. This study revealed that the frequency of child abuse among families with no strong religious beliefs is higher, but there was no significant relation between religious status of family and emotional, and doubtful sexual abuse of children(6). There is more evidence about the relationship between social isolation/interaction and child abuse or child neglect. Studies have pointed out that among families with no considerable social relations and interactions, the rates of child abuse are higher (11).
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ScienceDirect - Child Abuse & Neglect : The “geography” of child maltreatment in Israel: Findings from a national data set of cases reported to the social services
Child Abuse & Neglect: Volume 30, Issue 9, September 2006, Pages 991-1003; doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2006.02.014
"The “geography” of child maltreatment in Israel: Findings from a national data set of cases reported to the social services"

The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment was 17.8 per 1,000 children in Israel in 2000. The rates varied, however, among different localities. They were lower in Arab localities (9 per 1,000 children) than in the Jewish ones (20 per 1,000), higher in large cities and other socioeconomic affluent localities (19 per 1,000), and varied according to the geographic area.
....
...the state should better develop policies and services that encourage reporting of child maltreatment among the Arab and ultraorthodox populations and in smaller or socioeconomic disadvantaged localities. Furthermore, the social services must build a bridge to the minority populations in Israel, developing their trust in these services and increasing their propensity to use them.
Religion and religiosity
Arab localities were predominantly a combination of Muslims, Christian, and Druze Arabs. Among the Jewish localities, the study differentiated populations by degree of religiosity, as indicated by the presence of a large portion of ultraorthodox residents. Although unable to classify the localities by the exact portion of its ultraorthodox population (due to definition and measurement issues), the study did identify the localities with a large portion (>15% of the child population) of ultraorthodox residents (Ben-Arieh et al., 2000). Thus, we were able to classify the localities as either including large portions of ultraorthodox Jews or not.

The next step was to analyze the distribution among reported cases by type of maltreatment, gender, and age group as rates of reported cases per 1,000 children in the appropriate population group. Demographic data for this portion of the study were from Ben-Arieh et al., 2000 In: A. Ben-Arieh, Y. Zionit and Z. Binstock-Rivlin, Editors, Children in Israel—An annual statistical abstract, Center for Research and Public Education, National Council for the Child, Jerusalem (2000).Ben-Arieh et al. (2000). Different rates were compared in a pair-wise method. Based on Newcombe (1998), we have employed an unconditional method for setting confidence intervals for the difference between pairs of rates, using the following formula:
....
Table 3 presents the numbers and rates of reported cases of child maltreatment by the various characteristics of the localities described above. The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment is significantly lower in Arab localities than in the Jewish and mixed localities (Z12 is 47.53 and 32.89, respectively). The Jewish localities had a higher rate of reported child maltreatment cases than the nationwide rate (Z12 = 13.56). One question that arises from these data is whether this gap reflects differences in actual rates of child maltreatment across nationality lines or simply a gap in reporting. We discuss this more later.
Table 3.
Reported child maltreatment in 2000 by localities characteristics
....
Furthermore, several studies found that minorities make far less use of available social services than do majority groups (Sue & Sue, 1990; Sue, Zane, & Young, 1994), an observation also found to be valid among Arabs in Israel (Fenison, Popper, & Handelsman, 1990). The Arab population of Israel is a minority with a history of national and religious conflict with the majority of Israeli society. Social service personnel are perceived not only as “outsiders” but also as representatives of the Jewish state. Haj-Yahia (2000), for example, found that Arab women strongly resist applying to social services and are even more opposed to seeking legal aid or reporting to the police cases of domestic violence and wife abuse.

The conservative and traditional nature of the Arab community in Israel (Al-Haj, 1987 and Haj-Yahia, 1995) is also a likely contributing factor. Such communities are known to have lower reporting rates and a tendency to avoid involving “outsiders” in their internal issues (Haj-Yahia, 1995 M.M. Haj-Yahia, Toward culturally sensitive intervention with Arab families in Israel, Contemporary Family Therapy 17 (1995), pp. 429–447.

The ultraorthodox Jewish population, too, is far more conservative than the general population of Israel. As such, cultural arguments for lower reporting rates are likely to apply (Friedman, 1991). In fact, the reporting rates between areas with large populations of ultraorthodox Jew, such as in the occupied territories, are similarly low. The reporting rate in the occupied territories is 13.4/1,000, and in Jerusalem, also with a large ultraorthodox population, it is 12.3. Furthermore, the ultraorthodox separate themselves from the formal State of Israel in various respects. Like the Arab population, they perceive social service personnel not only as outsiders but also as representatives of the state and have developed their own institutions accordingly, including social services....

"Child maltreatment in the “children of the nineties”: A cohort study of risk factors"
Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 30, Issue 5, May 2006, Pages 497-522
This study supports previous research in the field demonstrating that a wide range of factors in the parental background, socio-economic and family environments affect the risk of child maltreatment. By combining factors within a comprehensive ecological framework, we have demonstrated that the strongest risks are from socio-economic deprivation and from factors in the parents’ own background and that parental background factors are largely, but not entirely, mediated through their impact on socio-economic factors.
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"Disgust, scrupulosity and conservative attitudes about sex: Evidence for a mediational model of homophobia"
Journal of Research in Personality, Volume 42, Issue 5, October 2008, Pages 1364-1369
In the present study, core disgust predicted negative attitudes toward homosexuals even after controlling for contamination fear. The effect of core disgust on negative attitudes toward homosexuals was indirect, partially mediated by conservative sexual attitudes and religiosity. The effects of religious principles on negative attitudes toward homosexuals were indirect, via conservative sexual beliefs. These results establish a link between disgust and negative attitudes towards homosexuals that is not fully accounted for by contamination concerns, but rather is partially accounted for by conservative sexual ideology and religiosity.
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"The effects of religious contextual norms, structural constraints, and personal religiosity on abortion decisions"
Social Science Research, Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 657-672
Researchers have established that individual religiosity influences abortion attitudes, and that abortion attitudes, in turn, shape abortion restrictions and access. Less clear is whether religion and abortion structural constraints influence abortion decisions. This study examines the several individual, contextual, and structural factors that could shape the abortion decisions of women who conceive before marriage. Special attention is given to the importance of academic aspirations and structural constraints, in contrast to religious beliefs and county religious context, for making an abortion decision. Hierarchical modeling techniques and two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) are employed. Neither generic religiosity nor conservative Protestant religious context appear to influence women’s abortion decisions. Conversely, young women’s abortion decisions are shaped by academic ambition, identification with a conservative Protestant denomination, proximity to an abortion clinic and the level of public abortion funding in their county of residence.
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"Compliance of Ultra-Orthodox and secular pedestrians with traffic lights in Ultra-Orthodox and secular locations"
Accident Analysis & Prevention, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 2 September 2008
Orthodox and secular pedestrians in neighboring Ultra-Orthodox and secular cities. Using an observation grid designed specially for this study, the pedestrians were observed at two crosswalks – one in an Ultra-Orthodox city and one in a secular city – as far as similar traffic parameters, using a logistic regression. The tendency to cross on a red light was assessed as a function of estimated age, gender, religiosity, location (religious/secular), the duration of the red light, the number of vehicles crossing and the number of pedestrians waiting at the curb. Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians committed more violations than secular pedestrians did, and there were more road violations in the Ultra-Orthodox location than there were in the secular location. Fewer traffic violations were committed by “local” pedestrians (Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians in the Ultra-Orthodox location and secular pedestrians in the secular location) than by “foreigners” (Ultra-Orthodox pedestrians in the secular location and secular pedestrians in the Ultra-Orthodox location). The odds of crossing on a red light decreased as a function of both the number of people waiting at the curb and the number of vehicles. Consistent with previous research, males crossed on red much more than females did, regardless of religiosity and location. Our discussion focuses on theoretical and practical explanations of the findings.
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"Visual attentional capture predicts belief in a meaningful world"
Cortex, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 10 July 2008
Here we show that the automatic, involuntary process of attentional capture is predictive of beliefs that are typically considered as much more complex and higher-level. Whereas some beliefs are well supported by evidence, others, such as the belief that coincidences occur for a reason, are not. We argue that the tendency to assign meaning to coincidences is a byproduct of an adaptive system that creates and maintains cognitive schemata, and automatically directs attention to violations of a currently active schema. Earlier studies have shown that, within subjects, attentional capture increases with schema strength. Yet, between-subjects effects could exist too: whereas each of us has schemata of various strengths, most likely different individuals are differently inclined to maintain strong or weak ones. Since schemata can be interpreted as beliefs, we predict more attentional capture for subjects with stronger beliefs than for subjects with weaker ones. We measured visual attentional capture in a reaction time experiment, and correlated it with scores on questionnaires about religious and other beliefs and about meaningfulness and surprisingness of coincidences. We found that visual attentional capture predicts a belief in meaningfulness of coincidences, and that this belief mediates a relationship between visual attentional capture and religiosity. Remarkably, strong believers were more disturbed by schema violations than weak believers, and yet appeared less aware of the disrupting events. We conclude that (a) religious people have a stronger belief in meaningfulness of coincidences, indicative of a more general tendency to maintain strong schemata, and that (b) this belief leads them to suppress, ignore, or forget information that has demonstrably captured their attention, but happens to be inconsistent with their schemata.
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"The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans"
Intelligence, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 16 September 2008
The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. Denominations differ significantly in IQ and income. Religiosity declines between ages 12 to 17. It is suggested that IQ makes an individual likely to gravitate toward a denomination and level of achievement that best fit his or hers particular level of cognitive complexity. Ontogenetically speaking this means that contemporary denominations are rank ordered by largely hereditary variations in brain efficiency (i.e. IQ). In terms of evolution, modern Atheists are reacting rationally to cognitive and emotional challenges, whereas Liberals and, in particular Dogmatics, still rely on ancient, pre-rational, supernatural and wishful thinking.
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Well that's enough of the liberal elite "ivory-tower" attacks on religiosity.

~

[modest]

"Atheist vs. Theist" is not an appropriate dichotomy when looking at rates of child molestation or any criminal action. It would be inappropriate to attempt to use data to suggest atheists are more or less ethically inclined on this issue than theists.

We are not talking about social groups of people that would show an identifiable pattern of social behavior. Atheists don't get together and socialize somewhere. They don't have a common background that would make them classifiable in this way. All they have in common is a philosophical position on one issue - and that is no basis for statements that would attempt to characterize the group's morality or ethics, much less their propensity for some specific criminal act.

Theists are also not a single monolithic group. Grouping together Baptists, Hindus, and Jews along with so many others and deducing anything specific about their criminology is ridiculous. These are all different kinds of individuals with very different geographic, sociological, and economic demographics. I would agree with Moontanman that these arguments show more about the person making the argument and their tactics than it does about the groups being compared.

~modest

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

However, with that said, many religious teachings attempt to directly suppress our natural sexual urges, and that inhibition tends to lead to more acts committed in order to release those urges.

I would encourage people to make the distinction between theism and the sexual repression enacted by many of the political powers that have hijacked religion as a means of keeping their authority in place. Of course once a religion has assumed this taint, it tends to keep it.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Further, all one must do is recall the issues with Catholic priests and child molestation to bring into perspective the significant anchoring effect religiosity has on this data.

In any community in which some highly respected and authoritative figure is required to maintain celibacy, it's not hard to gather that those who are for some reason (including sexual perversion) reluctant to marry normally might go for the idea of becoming one of such figures. There are cases in which their families pressure it with a somewhat remedial intent. It's important to understand a problem and gain a perspective, before hasty judgement. This is also more appropriate than mudslinging.

Is the blame on religion? Is a pedofilic priest really more of a hazard than pedofiles?

In my experience here, in a traditionally Catholic country, people tacitly know of the problem and resent it. It has however become much less of a taboo that many priests are covertly homosexual or pedofilic. The most devout Catholics might dutifully respect them as being the priest, despite disapproving highly of their sins, but nowadays they're more likely to be reported.