First, as Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of falsehoods. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Using prisons to proove anything is a bogus idea. First, atheists tend to be of a higher socio-economic class than most prisoners.
so you’re inferring (I think) that atheists tend to be smarter, more educated, make more money, etc. than the average prisoner (who is more likely to be Catholic than any other single religion). Hmmm … OK, and thanks (we’ve been trying to explain this to everyone for years)
Second, a majority of prisoners in America are in for drug crimes, primarily drugs that are used by lower socio-economic people. Most importantly, your little chart does not show how active they were BEFORE prison or if they were post-incarceration converts. That is a MAJOR piece of information to leave out. In fact, I would call the table either intentionally dishonest or a bad study.
if the study doesn’t go your way … attack the study right? Not exactly an original idea, and obviously (as Twain noted) statistics can be abused. However, this study is pretty straight forward (though obviously you’re right … it doesn’t tell us what percentage of those prisoners were in prison converts, moreover we can probably assume they weren’t very observant Catholics before they entered prison).
However, unless you want to drive down a course where you start become very pharisaic and exclude people who don’t fit your model of a perfect Catholic from your numbers (which doesn’t seem very Christ-like to me) then you do have to take ownership of these people & ask yourselves why do so many Catholics commit felonies?
Now, as far as your happy nations chart goes, in no particular order, the Japanese have a totally different culture than ours. SO much so that the basic understanding of why we exist is different. It is much closer to a hive mentality. Also, in Japan, you have a very, very homogenius population. NEver underestimate the importance of a shared culture.
OK but you’re the one who drove this discussion down this track (not me)? My original point was very simple, religion is not necessary for a good, productive, and happy society. You used communism (as if to say hey, look at what happens when religion goes away). I simply say communism is only an example of what happens when maniacal idiots take over a government … and it proves nothing with regard to this discussion (so your point was fallacious).
So you cannot now backtrack and point to the cultural differences between a liberal western society (like the US or France) and Japanese culture (of which I’m well aware, though those differences have diminished considerably over time).
I do not know enough about northern Europe to comment, but I would bet that there are similar ethnic uniformity there as in Japan.
so then what’s your point? Is it that racially and culturally homogeneous societies work better? Or that multi-cultural societies somehow require ancient mythology to make us work well?
France is a mess. It always will be. Sorry.
I strongly disagree with that statement. France doesn’t ever need to worry about the lights turning off because of some lunatic in the middle east started a new war, because they largely electrify themselves with nuclear power (sounds pretty smart to me). Also, look at their health care system (a public / private hybrid). Many experts are touting it as the best model out there. Moreover, France has some of the best industry in the world (in areas such as aviation and energy technology).
The only problem in France (the way I see) is religious fanaticism (which is now confined to its Islamic population). If religion was removed entirely from France they would be a model nation.
Since you have been on here, you have insulted a 15 year old, called us stupid (then instead of apologizing you claimed that you were using a form of humor that is beyond us), and now you are posting statistically questionable numbers.
Now you’re just slandering me to try and win an argument. I’ve never insulted a 15 year old, that’s a preposterous claim (and in fact I offered kind and good advice to the kid).
It’s always true that ad hom attacks are the argument of last resort (when your ammunition is running dry). Well, here you go. The truth is since I’ve been on here I’ve only resorted to logic, never spouted off in anger, and have always been respectful (though I disagree with you … and religious people face intellectual opposition in a much different way than non-religious people – you view it as some sort of assault and threat, verses what it actually is … mere intellectual disagreement).
