Measuring the Effects of Being Catholic?

[Ignatius]

Hi,

Is it possible to measure the effect of being Catholic?

That is the same as, and no more measurable than the effect God has on everything.

 

[switalabe]

JapaneseKappa, I like your posting.

 

[Gertabelle]

Some people say that religion makes people oppose science. Religious people usually respond with examples of famous religious scientists.

That’s all well and good, I don’t think that Catholic teaching is at all opposed to scientific inquiry. However, the culture within religious circles is somewhat anti-science in a rather subtle way, and here in this thread we have a perfect example. The culture does not say that science is bad, it simply tends to not bother to get scientific (name removed by moderator)ut on questions where scientific (name removed by moderator)ut is clearly relevant. When asked why science is being ignored, a brief hand-waving “it’s a religious matter,” or “it’s just common sense” excuse is offered.

There are a wide variety of things we could clearly, unambiguously, and uncontroversially measure that might differ between Catholics and other religions. For example: average educational level of members, divorce rate, representation in the prison population, self-reported life satisfaction, rates of STDs, charitable giving, or median incomes. We could then investigate if Catholicism actually had a causal role for those measures where Catholics were different.

Despite the existence of such obvious things to measure, posters here have instead invented a wide variety of reasons for thinking that “measuring” effects of Catholicism is inappropriate or impossible. This is not the traditional picture of anti-scientific thinking, where science is viewed as evil, but a more subtle denial of the usefulness of science in any subjects related to religion. Certainly there are questions related to religion which science can’t answer (e.g. measuring whether a soul is saved or not) but outward effects of Catholicism is clearly not one of them.

Look, if someone wants to do a study on the social, economic, political, psychological, biological, or geothermal impacts of practicing Catholicism, great. More power to 'em.

I think the point a lot of us are making here is that these are not the reasons we are Catholic. I’m not against studies being done, but I’m not gonna waste my time designing and implementing them. While these sorts of studies certainly gain valuable information for sociologists, for example, they do nothing whatsoever for me and the practice of my faith.

And quite frankly, if I’m going to take the time to do a research study, it’s going to be a mixed-methods correlative study to investigate the relationship between assessment methods and student achievement. But yeah, I have a hidden bias against science because I practice my faith for spiritual reasons, rather than the results of scientific studies

Just sayin’.

Gertie

 

[TimothyH]

How about this for a saying:

“Man can’t measure God, but God measures us.”

or

“I can’t measure being Christian, but being Christian measures me.”

This is very wise.

We really don’t know how pleasing anyone’s soul is to God.

-Tim-