Re: Insane Iislamic Bull ***

Joseph I. Mion <joe_mion@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

However, assuming that that was not your intention, I think you?re
grossly overstating the scope of the report I cited and my intentions
in citing it. ?The report cannot ?claim? a correlation, and does not do
so, nor does it make such sweeping conclusions about the data. ?The
first 2/3 of the document goes into extensive detail about why this is
so, including addressing the fact that polls are a highly dubious
method of data collection.

From the report:

"Indeed, countries containing high percentages of
non-believers are among the most healthy and wealthy nations
on earth (Paul, 2004)."

Now you tell us the report's methodology is "highly
dubious". Do you want us to take the report seriously
or not?

Now, even in the broadest strokes imaginable, I cannot claim that
atheism is solely responsible for the success of those nations. ?In
fact, the report does not support the conclusion that a large atheistic
population even contributes to the prosperity, though the data can help
us to infer that this is so.

Sounds like a big "Yes" to me; the report can help us infer
atheism contributes to prosperity.

However, it may also be possible
that a growing atheistic population is actually caused by the
prosperity of the nation-state, and is merely a symptom of that
prosperity, which, when you consider the report in its entirety, is
another reasonable conclusion to draw from it.

I think atheism is a symptom.

What can be gathered from the report (mind you, I?m not saying
concluded?), and the relevant portion I cited, is that, counter to
your intuitions, societies that have large and growing populations of
atheists are actually quite prosperous, and, on the whole, are
consistently more prosperous than countries without significant
populations of atheists. That is all. And my relevant point was
simply that this contradicts what people like Paul Gee, Fl Turbo and
the fundies are saying when they claim that American civilization has
declined since removing prayer from schools?? or they get on their
bandwagons about family values and other dogmatic morality clap-trap.

Oh, I agree with people like Paul Gee, Fl Turbo and the
fundies when they say growing atheism is a symptom of
societal decline. A little more on this later in the post.

Dont' get me wrong; I'm not anti-atheist. Voltaire, Hume,
and Russell all contributed to Western Civilization.

And science and reason developed in what kind of civilizations?
The only kind we know of, religious civilizations.

But, again, you?re getting lost in the cause-effect thing, getting
circular, and you're also begging the question, just in case you didn't
realize.

A simple assertion can only be true, false, or indeterminate.
"Science and reason developed in religious civilizations"
can't be a cause-effect thing or a beg-the-question thing;
it's a "p" thing or a "q" thing.

Science and reason have always been at odds with religion, or
did you forget what happened to Galileo? Wasn't Copernicus named as a
heretic for his findings regarding planetary motion?

Bad things happen in religious civilizations. There haven't
been any irreligious civilizations for anything to happen
in.

The fact is,
science and reason have always been able to advance better in societies
where there was less religious influence.

Bad religious influence. How about the good religious
influence - the religious education both Galileo and
Copernicus received? The only schools available were
religious; atheists, who would have been "way more in touch
with nature", didn't offer schooling. Personally, I've limited
my getting-in-touch-with-nature efforts to the ***
parts of nature, so I can't appreciate the value of the
deeper Gaian mysteries to education.

For a good historical
example, Galileo's contemporaries in Holland were way outdistancing the
rest of Europe in scientific and technlogical advancement largely
because of their exemption from Roman influence and observation.

Holland wasn't irreligious, its Protestants revolted from
Catholic Spain. That accounts for its exemption from Roman
influence.

For a
more recent example of the obverse, consider the recent affairs
regarding the IDF and evolutionary science.

Is Pat Robertson holding any biologists under house arrest?
Is Pat such a formidable debater that biologists are quailed
into silence?

And, your consideration failed to do anything but suggest that my
labeling of the dark ages was semantically inappropriate.

"Most modern historians dismiss the notion that the era was
a "Dark Age" by pointing out that this idea was based on
ignorance of the period combined with popular stereotypes"

is stronger than "semantically inappropriate".

Why not
spend a little time and consider the impact on history those years of
religious enlightenment had.

I accept the analysis in widipedia. If you have a problem
with it, take it to the wikepedians. Warning - they'll
expect more than arm-waving before they amend their article.

For example, address how the burning of
Alexandria set scientific progress back some number of centuries? ?What
did that do for this ?prosperity? you claim that religious tradition
brings to society? ?You do a good job of parsing out only the
information you think you can refute while ignoring the substance of
what is being said.

Good stuff; the wikipedians are sure to adopt it.

So, by quoting your demographers, are you meaning to suggest that whole
populations of insufficient reproducing atheists are eventually going
to disappear? ?That, by your reckoning, the population of Norway (4.6
million), through your half-life formula, will become extinct in 1200
years? ?Very impressive. ?

Even Paul Gee and Fl Turbo have caught on by now. But for
the benefit of the fundies, I've typed this in from a PDF:

"Nearly all European nations are experiencing long-term
downtrends in fertility, and consequently, aging of their
populations. Fertility rates are now below replacement level
(2.1 children per couple) in nearly all countries. As a
result, natural population growth rates are entering periods
of declining growth or outright decrease. At the same time,
the proportion of elderly dependents continues to grow while
the working-age population declines as a share of the
overall population. Moreover, net immigration, which
potentially could offset declines in working-age population
remains generally low in most European countries.

Taken as a whole, these demographic trends could have
potentially damaging consequences for European economies.
For example:

* as the working-age population decreases, countries
experience declines in human capital, which potentially
reduces productivity;
* pension and social insurance systems can become heavily
burdened;
* the ability to care for the growing elderly population
declines as household sizes decrease;
* the elderly face sharply increased health care needs and
costs.

In turn, these developments are likely to pose significant
barriers to achieving the goals of the European Union (EU)
Social Agenda: full employment, economic growth, and social
cohesion."

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG206.pdf

But, again, what is the relevance to this discussion?

European depopulation bodes ill for future European
prosperity - full employment, economic growth,
and social cohesion.

While the report you cited helps us to infer that a
large atheistic population contributes to prosperity,
the report I'm citing helps us to infer that a large
atheistic population contributes to depopulation
and impending impoverishment.

And there's the relevance to this discussion - helpful
statistical inferences may not be helpful at all.

I think both inferences are wrong; I think growing atheism
and falling fertility rates are symptoms, not causes.

Vico would say we're at the end of a historical cycle:

"the weakness of traditional ties and the questioning of
accepted customs and values that result from the
establishment of free democratic republics leads inevitably
to corruption and dissolution. The end of the cycle comes
either through conquest from without or through inner
disintegration or both. This is followed by a reversion to
barbarism and the cycle is then repeated."

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture10a.html

I don't think we'll hit the bottom Vico predicts, but Vico
was a smart guy, so just to play it safe: Anybody out there
questioning traditional values? Any of you free democratic
republics de-populating? If so, please stop.

(BTW: I think planet earth could use a hundred or so years of negative
population growth on this scale, dontchathink?)

I don't think the world needs fewer Europeans.

The Europeans need to think about who's likely to move
into their empty houses. Hint 1 - they'll be religious.
Hint 2 - sometimes they won't see the humor in editorial
cartoons.

But, again, it does not CAUSE existence,

The evidence is against you. If x and y are constantly
conjoined, that's evidence of a causal relationship.
I need more to assert causation, but you're way off
base asserting no causation with no evidence at all.

religion was just an
intermediate step in a social structure that had been evolving for
several million years before any god had entered the picture.

Things got better when folks back then got religion. How
can we tell when the time is right to scrap religion?
Should we wait for a prophet?

?Nor does
religion play a role in the CONTINUED existence of society. ?Nor does
it play a role in the future PROGRESSION of modern civilization. ?It
may have played a role in the establishment of early civilization, but
the expiration date has long since passed. ?Religion has been wearing
white after Labor Day for a long time and it's been getting away with
it.

That's prophecy, alright. If you prepend "I think" to each
of those assertions, you'll have opinions.

Do you think it's a simple coincidence that as scienctific
knowledge grows and becomes more accessible to people that there is a
correlated increase in atheism?

No, I don't think it's a conincidence. I think Vico was right,
though, that democracies will generate their own shakers up of
traditions; atheism is one of the shakers.

Then, rather than try to be witty, try showing me how progressive
religion is.

Statements like "Atheism is anti-conservative" and "Religion is
anti-progressive" are null statements to me. So what?

.