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On September 19 2015 03:14 Gorsameth wrote: Here is an idea. Obama is a 'Christian' because the political culture in America requires it. The guy is smart enough to know God is not real and the bible is a work of fiction.
Sadly America is not ready to accept an atheist as President so he has to pretend to be a Christian.
Here's an idea: there are multitudes of highly intelligent individuals who believe in God, and you are in no position to question the faith of another person. This discussion is as vulgar as it is stupid.
Do you think being an Atheist makes it less likely to be elected compared to being Christian?
We all know the answer to that question, but that doesn't' mean this is going to be a productive discussion. It is a fact that being an atheist or religious has not baring on how intelligent a person is. Just because you know Obama is intelligent does not automatically make him an atheist.
I absolutely agree that Obama is a Christian because of his faith, and the fact that he's intelligent doesn't mean he *can't* be a Christian or that he's *secretly* an atheist, which is what Gorsameth was saying.
That being said, there have been multiple studies that have shown a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Not causal, of course. Merely an association, but something to stir the pot if people think that there's no correlation whatsoever (or no studies done at all about these two factors). Wikipedia has a good compilation of some of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Here are some relevant quotes from the studies in the above link:
"the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.[4]"
"The idea that analytical thinking makes one less likely to be religious is an idea supported by other early studies on this issue[19] including a report from Harvard University.[15] ... Furthermore, the Harvard study found that participants who tended to think more reflectively were less likely to believe in a god.[15]"
"In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.[1][2]"
"Most of the recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between I.Q. and religiosity.[1][2]"
"Studies have shown a strong link between national average IQ and atheism in society."
There exist many other studies out there too, which tend to be either inconclusive, show a very weak correlation, or show a moderately negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.
But all this being said- yet again- being religious (or nonreligious) does not necessarily imply that you are particularly dumb (or smart), and there is no causal link between the two.
really not a big fan of referencing richard lynn, but I'll assume you didn't know that. ;p Also, I'm with Kwark, and this is entirely supported by my own anecdotal evidence. My impression is that american atheists are overwhelmingly more intelligent than average - but I have the same, perhaps even more significantly so, impression of Norwegian christians. Like every single person I've known throughout school who has been like a 'self identifying christian' (less than 10%) has been way smarter than the average student.
Beware the temptation to draw empirical conclusions. This falls in the classic mistake of assuming blacks make better athletes because most pro athletes in the US are black. Or, more relevant to this forum, that there's something inherent to being Korean that makes Koreans better at StarCraft.
I would point out that religiosity and atheism are not mutually exclusive or even a spectrum in most places. In fact, I would posit that this is a flawed dimensionality. Rather, it is the tolerance and vibrancy of other beliefs that comes with modernity, which in turn associates with advanced education and industry that baselines a society capable of providing for and cultivating citizens' intelligence, that is creating this correlation.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this statement, but are you saying that being religious and being an atheist are not mutually exclusive? I don't see how someone can be both religious *and* an atheist, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. Can you clarify please?
It's mostly that neither requires any firm commitment and it's easy to switch in modern countries like the United States or Norway. You can call yourself a Christian one day and then decide you'd rather be an atheist the next, and thus you could have been both a Christian and an atheist.
The way we're generalizing and lumping people in so easily is a vast oversimplification that overlooks the constant flow of beliefs and I think it can lead people to strange places, like comparisons of whether atheists are smarter or more rigorous thinkers than religious people...especially when it's then extended to questions that have little to do with religious beliefs.
EDIT: Mutually exclusive was too strong a term, although there's nothing stopping an atheist from attending religious services or a religious person from denying their religion at any given moment. I was mostly just getting at the ease of changing beliefs.
On September 19 2015 03:14 Gorsameth wrote: Here is an idea. Obama is a 'Christian' because the political culture in America requires it. The guy is smart enough to know God is not real and the bible is a work of fiction.
Sadly America is not ready to accept an atheist as President so he has to pretend to be a Christian.
Here's an idea: there are multitudes of highly intelligent individuals who believe in God, and you are in no position to question the faith of another person. This discussion is as vulgar as it is stupid.
Do you think being an Atheist makes it less likely to be elected compared to being Christian?
We all know the answer to that question, but that doesn't' mean this is going to be a productive discussion. It is a fact that being an atheist or religious has not baring on how intelligent a person is. Just because you know Obama is intelligent does not automatically make him an atheist.
I absolutely agree that Obama is a Christian because of his faith, and the fact that he's intelligent doesn't mean he *can't* be a Christian or that he's *secretly* an atheist, which is what Gorsameth was saying.
That being said, there have been multiple studies that have shown a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Not causal, of course. Merely an association, but something to stir the pot if people think that there's no correlation whatsoever (or no studies done at all about these two factors). Wikipedia has a good compilation of some of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Here are some relevant quotes from the studies in the above link:
"the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.[4]"
"The idea that analytical thinking makes one less likely to be religious is an idea supported by other early studies on this issue[19] including a report from Harvard University.[15] ... Furthermore, the Harvard study found that participants who tended to think more reflectively were less likely to believe in a god.[15]"
"In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.[1][2]"
"Most of the recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between I.Q. and religiosity.[1][2]"
"Studies have shown a strong link between national average IQ and atheism in society."
There exist many other studies out there too, which tend to be either inconclusive, show a very weak correlation, or show a moderately negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.
But all this being said- yet again- being religious (or nonreligious) does not necessarily imply that you are particularly dumb (or smart), and there is no causal link between the two.
really not a big fan of referencing richard lynn, but I'll assume you didn't know that. ;p Also, I'm with Kwark, and this is entirely supported by my own anecdotal evidence. My impression is that american atheists are overwhelmingly more intelligent than average - but I have the same, perhaps even more significantly so, impression of Norwegian christians. Like every single person I've known throughout school who has been like a 'self identifying christian' (less than 10%) has been way smarter than the average student.
Beware the temptation to draw empirical conclusions. This falls in the classic mistake of assuming blacks make better athletes because most pro athletes in the US are black. Or, more relevant to this forum, that there's something inherent to being Korean that makes Koreans better at StarCraft.
I would point out that religiosity and atheism are not mutually exclusive or even a spectrum in most places. In fact, I would posit that this is a flawed dimensionality. Rather, it is the tolerance and vibrancy of other beliefs that comes with modernity, which in turn associates with advanced education and industry that baselines a society capable of providing for and cultivating citizens' intelligence, that is creating this correlation.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this statement, but are you saying that being religious and being an atheist are not mutually exclusive? I don't see how someone can be both religious *and* an atheist, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. Can you clarify please?
It's mostly that neither requires any firm commitment and it's easy to switch in modern countries like the United States or Norway. You can call yourself a Christian one day and then decide you'd rather be an atheist the next, and thus you could have been both a Christian and an atheist.
The way we're generalizing and lumping people in so easily is a vast oversimplification that overlooks the constant flow of beliefs and I think it can lead people to strange places, like comparisons of whether atheists are smarter or more rigorous thinkers than religious people...especially when it's then extended to questions that have little to do with religious beliefs.
EDIT: Mutually exclusive was too strong a term, although there's nothing stopping an atheist from attending religious services or a religious person from denying their religion at any given moment. I was mostly just getting at the ease of changing beliefs.
I'm having a bit of trouble with your explanation of the firm commitment. I'm of the understanding that belief is not subject to the will in terms of choice, though. That is to say, I'm an atheist and I could "call" myself a Christian (and even go to mass), but I wouldn't magically turn into one because I don't truly believe in Jesus. Similarly, a devout Christian could lie and pretend to be an atheist, but that doesn't make him an atheist. I don't think it's that easy, and it either takes a long, grueling process of skepticism/ jadedness/ introspection, or some sort of immediate epiphany (neither of which are things you can just choose to let happen to you whenever it's convenient). Obviously, people can and do convert, but it's rarely so simplistic that you can merely "decide you'd rather be an atheist".
On September 19 2015 03:14 Gorsameth wrote: Here is an idea. Obama is a 'Christian' because the political culture in America requires it. The guy is smart enough to know God is not real and the bible is a work of fiction.
Sadly America is not ready to accept an atheist as President so he has to pretend to be a Christian.
Here's an idea: there are multitudes of highly intelligent individuals who believe in God, and you are in no position to question the faith of another person. This discussion is as vulgar as it is stupid.
Do you think being an Atheist makes it less likely to be elected compared to being Christian?
We all know the answer to that question, but that doesn't' mean this is going to be a productive discussion. It is a fact that being an atheist or religious has not baring on how intelligent a person is. Just because you know Obama is intelligent does not automatically make him an atheist.
I absolutely agree that Obama is a Christian because of his faith, and the fact that he's intelligent doesn't mean he *can't* be a Christian or that he's *secretly* an atheist, which is what Gorsameth was saying.
That being said, there have been multiple studies that have shown a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Not causal, of course. Merely an association, but something to stir the pot if people think that there's no correlation whatsoever (or no studies done at all about these two factors). Wikipedia has a good compilation of some of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Here are some relevant quotes from the studies in the above link:
"the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.[4]"
"The idea that analytical thinking makes one less likely to be religious is an idea supported by other early studies on this issue[19] including a report from Harvard University.[15] ... Furthermore, the Harvard study found that participants who tended to think more reflectively were less likely to believe in a god.[15]"
"In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.[1][2]"
"Most of the recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between I.Q. and religiosity.[1][2]"
"Studies have shown a strong link between national average IQ and atheism in society."
There exist many other studies out there too, which tend to be either inconclusive, show a very weak correlation, or show a moderately negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.
But all this being said- yet again- being religious (or nonreligious) does not necessarily imply that you are particularly dumb (or smart), and there is no causal link between the two.
really not a big fan of referencing richard lynn, but I'll assume you didn't know that. ;p Also, I'm with Kwark, and this is entirely supported by my own anecdotal evidence. My impression is that american atheists are overwhelmingly more intelligent than average - but I have the same, perhaps even more significantly so, impression of Norwegian christians. Like every single person I've known throughout school who has been like a 'self identifying christian' (less than 10%) has been way smarter than the average student.
Beware the temptation to draw empirical conclusions. This falls in the classic mistake of assuming blacks make better athletes because most pro athletes in the US are black. Or, more relevant to this forum, that there's something inherent to being Korean that makes Koreans better at StarCraft.
I would point out that religiosity and atheism are not mutually exclusive or even a spectrum in most places. In fact, I would posit that this is a flawed dimensionality. Rather, it is the tolerance and vibrancy of other beliefs that comes with modernity, which in turn associates with advanced education and industry that baselines a society capable of providing for and cultivating citizens' intelligence, that is creating this correlation.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this statement, but are you saying that being religious and being an atheist are not mutually exclusive? I don't see how someone can be both religious *and* an atheist, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. Can you clarify please?
It's mostly that neither requires any firm commitment and it's easy to switch in modern countries like the United States or Norway. You can call yourself a Christian one day and then decide you'd rather be an atheist the next, and thus you could have been both a Christian and an atheist.
The way we're generalizing and lumping people in so easily is a vast oversimplification that overlooks the constant flow of beliefs and I think it can lead people to strange places, like comparisons of whether atheists are smarter or more rigorous thinkers than religious people...especially when it's then extended to questions that have little to do with religious beliefs.
EDIT: Mutually exclusive was too strong a term, although there's nothing stopping an atheist from attending religious services or a religious person from denying their religion at any given moment. I was mostly just getting at the ease of changing beliefs.
I'm having a bit of trouble with your explanation of the firm commitment. I'm of the understanding that belief is not subject to the will in terms of choice, though. That is to say, I'm an atheist and I could "call" myself a Christian (and even go to mass), but I wouldn't magically turn into one because I don't truly believe in Jesus. Similarly, a devout Christian could lie and pretend to be an atheist, but that doesn't make him an atheist. I don't think it's that easy, and it either takes a long, grueling process of skepticism/ jadedness/ introspection, or some sort of immediate epiphany (neither of which are things you can just choose to let happen to you whenever it's convenient). Obviously, people can and do convert, but it's rarely so simplistic that you can merely "decide you'd rather be an atheist".
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
It does not rise to the level of scared, holy event. It is not divine. It's sex, it is one of the many nice parts of existence.
Does anything rise to the level of sacred or holy for you?
BW Flash, obviously.
I would agree that people who sincerely change will do so in a thoughtful and deliberate way, but I don't see why it needs to be a long and grueling process other than fraying people's patience with their existing beliefs.
An old article but gets to the fact that many Americans change religions over their lives. The reasons people change are diverse but the biggest reasons indicate it's more because people get fed up with their religion than anything else. At the same time, it is fairly common for people to change their religion and more than once:
Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.
The reasons people give for changing their religion – or leaving religion altogether – differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert...
Moreover, it is also clear that many people have changed religious affiliation more than once. For example, roughly two-thirds of those who were raised Catholic or Protestant but now say they are not affiliated with any particular religion have changed faiths at least twice in their life, including those who have changed within the unaffiliated tradition (e.g., from atheist to agnostic). The same is true for roughly half of former Catholics who have become Protestant, people who have changed denominational families within Protestantism and people who have become affiliated with a religion after having been raised unaffiliated...
About half of those who have become unaffiliated say – in response to the survey’s yes-or-no questions – that they became unaffiliated, at least in part, because they think of religious people as hypocritical, judgmental or insincere. Large numbers also say they became unaffiliated because they think that religious organizations focus too much on rules and not enough on spirituality, or that religious leaders are too focused on money and power rather than truth and spirituality. Another reason cited by many people who are now unaffiliated is the belief that many religions are partly true but no single religion is completely true. Fewer people, however, say they became unaffiliated because they think modern science proves that religion is just superstition, indicating that the belief that science disproves religion is a less important reason for becoming unaffiliated than disenchantment with religious people or institutions.
I'd put it this way. If you want to see Americans find religion and change their minds really fast, try following college football.
On September 21 2015 09:51 Danglars wrote: More than 300,000 abortions yearly is hardly a blip in the overall U.S. abortion industry.
In 2011, there were 730322 legal abortions in the 47 states that published such data (excluding California, Maryland and New Hampshire). Barring large anomalies in those three states, the US abortion epidemic is running at only about half a holocaust right now.
So a cut of 1/5th of a holocaust from that would be significant.
Wouldn't a much more significant cut from the abortion "industry" occur if all 50 states had proper sex education and contraceptives were made readily available to those who wished to be smart about their sexually active lifestyle?
Would sure cut down on the STD "industry" too.
Because the "pro-life" crowd isn't pro life at all just pro birth. They couldn't care less after the kid is born otherwise they would be for universal healthcare, universal day care etc.
I'm pro-choice, but I think it's a bit unfair for you to characterize everyone who disagrees with you on that issue in that way. I know many people who are pro-life who also for social programs to help everyone. It seems to be a pretty common position among liberal Christians in my experience. They believe life begins at conception and they believe abortion is state sanctioned murder. I disagree, but it's not like they're insane assholes
On September 21 2015 15:10 IgnE wrote: Because he said sex was nothing special.
Damn near every living being, including Animals, has sex. Animals and People do it all the time. Sex is awesome and important, how important it is to an indiviudal varies widely tho. Calling sex something sacred is exactly the issue with american prudishness and its annoying beyond belief.
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
I feel like there are a bunch of reasons why a person may consider sex to be special (as in, significant and memorable), from pregnancy, to orgasm, to intimacy with a partner, etc.
So yeah, I think sex can be special for a bunch of different reasons. None of them require me to dogmatically place my faith in the supernatural or cherry pick from an inaccurate book of mythology that's thousands of years old though, so if that's your metric on what "special" means (as we've already seen your semantics arguments on whatever you choose to define and ignore), then you're just being intellectually dishonest. The fact that we can find value in things doesn't mean that that value has to be supernaturally based.
If anything, I find sex to be so important and special, that I think we should make sure that the entire American population is aware of its positive- and negative effects- hence my desire to make sure students have access to a proper sex education, contraception, etc.
On September 21 2015 09:51 Danglars wrote: More than 300,000 abortions yearly is hardly a blip in the overall U.S. abortion industry.
In 2011, there were 730322 legal abortions in the 47 states that published such data (excluding California, Maryland and New Hampshire). Barring large anomalies in those three states, the US abortion epidemic is running at only about half a holocaust right now.
So a cut of 1/5th of a holocaust from that would be significant.
Wouldn't a much more significant cut from the abortion "industry" occur if all 50 states had proper sex education and contraceptives were made readily available to those who wished to be smart about their sexually active lifestyle?
Would sure cut down on the STD "industry" too.
Because the "pro-life" crowd isn't pro life at all just pro birth. They couldn't care less after the kid is born otherwise they would be for universal healthcare, universal day care etc.
I'm pro-choice, but I think it's a bit unfair for you to characterize everyone who disagrees with you on that issue in that way. I know many people who are pro-life who also for social programs to help everyone. It seems to be a pretty common position among liberal Christians in my experience. They believe life begins at conception and they believe abortion is state sanctioned murder. I disagree, but it's not like they're insane assholes
I think he was speaking to the typical platforms endorsed (and not endorsed) by the Republican party, as they vocally champion themselves as pro-life and that every human life is sacred and deserves to be healthy, but their voting record shows that they tend to care more for humans under the age of 0 than they do for humans over the age of 0.
At least, that's what I figured he was referring to; that's how I interpreted it.
On September 19 2015 03:27 farvacola wrote: [quote] Here's an idea: there are multitudes of highly intelligent individuals who believe in God, and you are in no position to question the faith of another person. This discussion is as vulgar as it is stupid.
Do you think being an Atheist makes it less likely to be elected compared to being Christian?
We all know the answer to that question, but that doesn't' mean this is going to be a productive discussion. It is a fact that being an atheist or religious has not baring on how intelligent a person is. Just because you know Obama is intelligent does not automatically make him an atheist.
I absolutely agree that Obama is a Christian because of his faith, and the fact that he's intelligent doesn't mean he *can't* be a Christian or that he's *secretly* an atheist, which is what Gorsameth was saying.
That being said, there have been multiple studies that have shown a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Not causal, of course. Merely an association, but something to stir the pot if people think that there's no correlation whatsoever (or no studies done at all about these two factors). Wikipedia has a good compilation of some of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
Here are some relevant quotes from the studies in the above link:
"the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.[4]"
"The idea that analytical thinking makes one less likely to be religious is an idea supported by other early studies on this issue[19] including a report from Harvard University.[15] ... Furthermore, the Harvard study found that participants who tended to think more reflectively were less likely to believe in a god.[15]"
"In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.[1][2]"
"Most of the recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between I.Q. and religiosity.[1][2]"
"Studies have shown a strong link between national average IQ and atheism in society."
There exist many other studies out there too, which tend to be either inconclusive, show a very weak correlation, or show a moderately negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.
But all this being said- yet again- being religious (or nonreligious) does not necessarily imply that you are particularly dumb (or smart), and there is no causal link between the two.
really not a big fan of referencing richard lynn, but I'll assume you didn't know that. ;p Also, I'm with Kwark, and this is entirely supported by my own anecdotal evidence. My impression is that american atheists are overwhelmingly more intelligent than average - but I have the same, perhaps even more significantly so, impression of Norwegian christians. Like every single person I've known throughout school who has been like a 'self identifying christian' (less than 10%) has been way smarter than the average student.
Beware the temptation to draw empirical conclusions. This falls in the classic mistake of assuming blacks make better athletes because most pro athletes in the US are black. Or, more relevant to this forum, that there's something inherent to being Korean that makes Koreans better at StarCraft.
I would point out that religiosity and atheism are not mutually exclusive or even a spectrum in most places. In fact, I would posit that this is a flawed dimensionality. Rather, it is the tolerance and vibrancy of other beliefs that comes with modernity, which in turn associates with advanced education and industry that baselines a society capable of providing for and cultivating citizens' intelligence, that is creating this correlation.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this statement, but are you saying that being religious and being an atheist are not mutually exclusive? I don't see how someone can be both religious *and* an atheist, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. Can you clarify please?
It's mostly that neither requires any firm commitment and it's easy to switch in modern countries like the United States or Norway. You can call yourself a Christian one day and then decide you'd rather be an atheist the next, and thus you could have been both a Christian and an atheist.
The way we're generalizing and lumping people in so easily is a vast oversimplification that overlooks the constant flow of beliefs and I think it can lead people to strange places, like comparisons of whether atheists are smarter or more rigorous thinkers than religious people...especially when it's then extended to questions that have little to do with religious beliefs.
EDIT: Mutually exclusive was too strong a term, although there's nothing stopping an atheist from attending religious services or a religious person from denying their religion at any given moment. I was mostly just getting at the ease of changing beliefs.
I'm having a bit of trouble with your explanation of the firm commitment. I'm of the understanding that belief is not subject to the will in terms of choice, though. That is to say, I'm an atheist and I could "call" myself a Christian (and even go to mass), but I wouldn't magically turn into one because I don't truly believe in Jesus. Similarly, a devout Christian could lie and pretend to be an atheist, but that doesn't make him an atheist. I don't think it's that easy, and it either takes a long, grueling process of skepticism/ jadedness/ introspection, or some sort of immediate epiphany (neither of which are things you can just choose to let happen to you whenever it's convenient). Obviously, people can and do convert, but it's rarely so simplistic that you can merely "decide you'd rather be an atheist".
On September 21 2015 12:50 IgnE wrote:
On September 21 2015 12:14 Plansix wrote:
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
It does not rise to the level of scared, holy event. It is not divine. It's sex, it is one of the many nice parts of existence.
Does anything rise to the level of sacred or holy for you?
BW Flash, obviously.
I would agree that people who sincerely change will do so in a thoughtful and deliberate way, but I don't see why it needs to be a long and grueling process other than fraying people's patience with their existing beliefs.
That's all I was saying Merely that I don't think that the change in religion- or specifically, the change in one's religious beliefs- is completely arbitrary. I think the issue there was merely semantical- how "firm" a "firm commitment" does or does not have to be, with respect to one's religious beliefs.
An old article but gets to the fact that many Americans change religions over their lives. The reasons people change are diverse but the biggest reasons indicate it's more because people get fed up with their religion than anything else. At the same time, it is fairly common for people to change their religion and more than once:
Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.
The reasons people give for changing their religion – or leaving religion altogether – differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert...
Moreover, it is also clear that many people have changed religious affiliation more than once. For example, roughly two-thirds of those who were raised Catholic or Protestant but now say they are not affiliated with any particular religion have changed faiths at least twice in their life, including those who have changed within the unaffiliated tradition (e.g., from atheist to agnostic). The same is true for roughly half of former Catholics who have become Protestant, people who have changed denominational families within Protestantism and people who have become affiliated with a religion after having been raised unaffiliated...
About half of those who have become unaffiliated say – in response to the survey’s yes-or-no questions – that they became unaffiliated, at least in part, because they think of religious people as hypocritical, judgmental or insincere. Large numbers also say they became unaffiliated because they think that religious organizations focus too much on rules and not enough on spirituality, or that religious leaders are too focused on money and power rather than truth and spirituality. Another reason cited by many people who are now unaffiliated is the belief that many religions are partly true but no single religion is completely true. Fewer people, however, say they became unaffiliated because they think modern science proves that religion is just superstition, indicating that the belief that science disproves religion is a less important reason for becoming unaffiliated than disenchantment with religious people or institutions.
I'd put it this way. If you want to see Americans find religion and change their minds really fast, try following college football.
Yeah, that article was supporting my thought process as well- the fact that Americans generally change their religion either 0 times or 1 time throughout their entire life, so it's not so common for a person to just arbitrarily decide to switch religious beliefs on a whim, let alone multiple times over their lifetime.
And I think the football analogy is funny (and accurate in terms of someone changing their "team" if they've grown weary of them), but I was thinking about it in terms of not who you're rooting for, but who you truly believe is going to win. It's that whole "Vote with your heart/ vote with your head" type of deal, where I could want X to be true/ real/ correct, but do I *actually* think that X is true/ real/ correct.
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
I feel like there are a bunch of reasons why a person may consider sex to be special (as in, significant and memorable), from pregnancy, to orgasm, to intimacy with a partner, etc.
So yeah, I think sex can be special for a bunch of different reasons. None of them require me to dogmatically place my faith in the supernatural or cherry pick from an inaccurate book of mythology that's thousands of years old though, so if that's your metric on what "special" means (as we've already seen your semantics arguments on whatever you choose to define and ignore), then you're just being intellectually dishonest. The fact that we can find value in things doesn't mean that that value has to be supernaturally based.
If anything, I find sex to be so important and special, that I think we should make sure that the entire American population is aware of its positive- and negative effects- hence my desire to make sure students have access to a proper sex education, contraception, etc.
Oh my B, DBP, I confused your carrier and response with that of Plansix's carrier, since my question was directed at him.
On September 21 2015 15:10 IgnE wrote: Because he said sex was nothing special.
You're not even trying any more. Not only did I say that sex is special, but I literally listed 3 different ways why someone might think so:
On September 21 2015 12:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
I feel like there are a bunch of reasons why a person may consider sex to be special (as in, significant and memorable), from pregnancy, to orgasm, to intimacy with a partner, etc.
So yeah, I think sex can be special for a bunch of different reasons. None of them require me to dogmatically place my faith in the supernatural or cherry pick from an inaccurate book of mythology that's thousands of years old though, so if that's your metric on what "special" means (as we've already seen your semantics arguments on whatever you choose to define and ignore), then you're just being intellectually dishonest. The fact that we can find value in things doesn't mean that that value has to be supernaturally based.
If anything, I find sex to be so important and special, that I think we should make sure that the entire American population is aware of its positive- and negative effects- hence my desire to make sure students have access to a proper sex education, contraception, etc.
Oh my B, DBP, I confused your carrier and response with that of Plansix's carrier, since my question was directed at him.
On September 21 2015 12:03 IgnE wrote: Sex is not nothing special.
It does not rise to the level of scared, holy event. It is not divine. It's sex, it is one of the many nice parts of existence.
Does anything rise to the level of sacred or holy for you?
Because the answer is: that's kinda private. But I don't expect people to hold the same things as sacred and holy that I do. I don't demand that laws be passed based on it. Or policy be set to affirm and protect.
So if people find sex to be sacred, cool. If they want laws passed or policy written forcing other to conform to their views of sex, not to much.
That's pretty much a non-answer. Surely you aren't saying that the only people who are allowed to "pass laws" or "set policy" on certain things are people who find those things profane? Is that some kind of requirement to recuse? On those aspects of life that almost everyone finds sacred (e.g childbirth) we must have a tiny minority of unempathic individuals set policy for all?
It's unclear what you think policy is for, or whether you even think democracy is important. If you think democracy and voting on issues are important, it is unclear why or how you think people ought to set a norm without reference to the sacred.
This argument is getting boarder by the second and more vague by the second. People can vote to elect people who mirror their views and in some places pass referendums. However, that doesn’t mean that they should be able to prohibit sex education in public school any more than they can prohibit learning about slavery in the US. Or pass laws prohibiting abortions when those are legal. Or pass laws defining how people can and can’t have sex because they think it’s a sacred event.
On September 22 2015 01:46 IgnE wrote: That's pretty much a non-answer. Surely you aren't saying that the only people who are allowed to "pass laws" or "set policy" on certain things are people who find those things profane? Is that some kind of requirement to recuse? On those aspects of life that almost everyone finds sacred (e.g childbirth) we must have a tiny minority of unempathic individuals set policy for all?
It's unclear what you think policy is for, or whether you even think democracy is important. If you think democracy and voting on issues are important, it is unclear why or how you think people ought to set a norm without reference to the sacred.
somewhat related
America's 'virgin births'? One in 200 mothers 'became pregnant without having sex'
The results of a long-term study of reproductive health, published in the British Medical Journal, have revealed that one in two hundred US women claim to have given birth without ever having had sexual intercourse.
The findings were based on a study of 7,870 women and girls aged 15 to 28, as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which ran from 1995 to 2009.
The Christmas issue of the BMJ reports that, of the women who took part in the study, 45 (0.5%) reported at least one virgin pregnancy, "unrelated to the use of assisted reproductive technology."
In short, they claimed to have conceived - yet had not had vaginal intercourse or in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). [...] They found that the girls who had become pregnant, despite claiming they had never had sex at the time of conception, shared some common characteristics.
Thirty-one per cent of the girls had signed a so-called 'chastity pledge', whereby they vow - usually for religious reasons - not to have sex. Fifteen per cent of non-virgins who became pregnant also said they had signed such pledges.
The 45 self-described virgins who reported having become pregnant and the 36 who gave birth were also more likely than non-virgins to say their parents never or rarely talked to them about sex and birth control.
About 28 per cent of the "virgin" mothers' parents (who were also interviewed) indicated they didn't have enough knowledge to discuss sex and contraception with their daughters, compared to 5 percent of the parents of girls who became pregnant and said they had had intercourse.
1 in 200 sounds like a lot. Granted, no idea what the stats are like for Europe and I'm not even trying to compare in the first place. But it seems to be an issue of not even knowing what sex is so either way, you can't possible be trying to tell people that sex-ed is something that should be possible to "pass away" with laws
EPT
Merely that I don't think that the change in religion- or specifically, the change in one's religious beliefs- is completely arbitrary. I think the issue there was merely semantical- how "firm" a "firm commitment" does or does not have to be, with respect to one's religious beliefs. 
