Study: Atheists put less value on love than believers.

[Lagmonster]

News Story

According to this study, atheists supposedly place a lower value on love than Christians do. Naturally, this article is being quoted out of context at Christian sites all over the web (ironic that they need to quote an article biased in their favour out of context so it's even MORE in their favour). Naturally, it's also a lopsided fucking study designed by a Christian and bases the concept of values on the Ten Commandments, so that deck was fucking stacked. Doesn't HELP any that this is the press we get.

[Xisiqomelir]

The survey of 1,600 Canadian adults, led by University of Lethbridge professor Reginald Bibby, gave a list of 12 values - from honesty to family life to politeness to generosity - and asked the participants if they found each "very important." In each case, theists ranked the values as more important than atheists.

Scientific as FUCK.

[Aaron]

Isn't the University of Lethbridge a christian university?

[Wicked Pilot]

The study says that believers will not always translate their views into action but "at least they are inclined to hold the values"...

and that many nations that are highly secular do a better job of taking care of their poor than religious ones.

The two most important sentences pulled from the article. Values don't mean shit without actions to back them up.

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

[Aaron]

Isn't the University of Lethbridge a christian university?

Hmm, disregard this. I've just been looking through their site and I don't see anything obviously christian. Must have been thinking of something else.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Probably.

As with most survey studies, I'd like to see the actual questions.

[Sidewinder]

"Religion tends to be very polarizing, so religious people always feel very passionately about those values. They always feel 'very strongly.' Religion always does this black-and-white thing. An atheist is a lot more temperate, a bit more hesitant. An atheist might be more nuanced in his or her thinking."

Considering that religion has been used to justify atrocities such as mass murder, torture and mutilation, and rape, I have a damn good reason to be hesitant.

[mr friendly guy]

The study says: "To the extent that Canadians are saying good-bye to God, we may find that we pay a significant social price."

You mean things like religious tolerance and equal rights for homosexuals?

[Patrick Degan]

At a guess, I would say that the questions in this study were slanted toward a particular bias. It would be interesting to actually see the questionnaire which was used and the conditions under which survey participants were interrogated.

[Crown]

The study says that believers will not always translate their views into action but "at least they are inclined to hold the values"...

and that many nations that are highly secular do a better job of taking care of their poor than religious ones.

The two most important sentences pulled from the article. Values don't mean shit without actions to back them up.

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

Fly high man.

[SirNitram]

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

You'll come back, because otherwise we're gonna storm Hell and bust you out.

[Kanastrous]

"Religion tends to be very polarizing, so religious people always feel very passionately about those values. They always feel 'very strongly.' Religion always does this black-and-white thing. An atheist is a lot more temperate, a bit more hesitant. An atheist might be more nuanced in his or her thinking."

Considering that religion has been used to justify atrocities such as mass murder, torture and mutilation, and rape, I have a damn good reason to be hesitant.

Also note the implicit contempt for temperence and nuanced thinking.

Because it's not like we have ready evidence at hand, for the consequences of a society's refusal to practice political temperence, while being led by a president with no nuance to his thinking, at all.

[Stark]

No, critical thinking and consideration of decisions = hesitation. This is WEAKNESS!

[Nova Andromeda]

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

-Does anyone know who we are suposed take our wrath out on? The guys who ordered him into a Catasterfuck (TM, Daily Show), the guys who killed him, or both?
-Can we use a Shep solution?

[Eris]

Despite the general trend of scepticism here, I'm going to have to come out and say that I do in fact agree that atheists such as myself place less value on love than Christians. Some examples.

• I disapprove of the sexual love between young children and adults.
• I disapprove of the unconditional love of a mass murdering psychopath.
• I disapprove of the any kind of loving your (global) neighbour that encourages or even fails to condemn preaching abstinence only education, and indeed vilify condom-use, while an AIDS epidemic of horrific proportions guts an entire continent.

See, I'm clearly much less filled with love than Christians.

[Knife]

And this my friends will be my last post of the year

Keep your head down and your eyes open. Not worried about you in the air, but on the ground you Gray Hound Bus Drivers are vulnerable.

Does anyone know who we are suposed take our wrath out on? The guys who ordered him into a Catasterfuck (TM, Daily Show), the guys who killed him, or both?

All the above. Vote Democrate so the Repubs get insuecure in their last moments and instatute a 'Linebacker' type operation and then get swept out of office. Gives Shep his due and makes everyone happier at the end.

[Darth Wong]

The study says that believers will not always translate their views into action but "at least they are inclined to hold the values"...

and that many nations that are highly secular do a better job of taking care of their poor than religious ones.

The two most important sentences pulled from the article. Values don't mean shit without actions to back them up.

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

I don't have much time to post lately, but good luck.

As for the thread subject, it would be incredibly easy to devise a survey to come up with this conclusion, because Christians are conditioned every week to use the word "love" in ways that it would not normally be used, and in ways that they don't really sincerely mean. For example, only a Christian would honestly believe that he subscribes to the "hate the sin, love the sinner" credo while simultaneously passing laws meant to discriminate against those same sinners.

In other words, all you have to do is use the word "love" in sentences which are commonly heard in church, and Christians will tend to answer "yes" to those sentences. It doesn't actually mean anything; they're just responding to their conditioning.

For example: if you ask a Christian if it is important to "love your enemies", he probably has a significantly higher chance of answering "yes" than a non-Christian, because he's been conditioned with that phrase over a lifetime. A normal person would probably employ the fairly reasonable assumption that an "enemy" is not someone that you have a lot of "love" for, by definition. Both people would probably treat an enemy the same way, despite the flowery bullshit from the Bible set.

[Mange]

The study says: "To the extent that Canadians are saying good-bye to God, we may find that we pay a significant social price."

What sort of crap is that and how the hell does that belong in a scientific paper? Without any hard data, I find believers (particularly evangelicals) to be the cold, lacking empathy, an understanding for other people and are using the word 'love' as a catch-all word.

[Darth Wong]

The study says: "To the extent that Canadians are saying good-bye to God, we may find that we pay a significant social price."

What sort of crap is that and how the hell does that belong in a scientific paper? Without any hard data, I find believers (particularly evangelicals) to be the cold, lacking empathy, an understanding for other people and are using the word 'love' as a catch-all word.

Has this article even undergone any sort of peer review? I get the feeling that the author went straight to the press, which loves to report this sort of thing and never reports the critical peer review (see all of the "power of prayer" medical studies which always get reported immediately while subsequent peer debunkings are ignored).

[Admiral Valdemar]

The study says that believers will not always translate their views into action but "at least they are inclined to hold the values"...

and that many nations that are highly secular do a better job of taking care of their poor than religious ones.

The two most important sentences pulled from the article. Values don't mean shit without actions to back them up.

And this my friends will be my last post of the year. As always should I fail to come back I expect you all to avenge my death.

You'll be back. You'd better be back.

The first sentence quoted above from that article is rather interesting, though. It's like having a priest who buggers children. Sure, he knows the values of love and decency, but he just chose not to put them into action. But he KNOWS of them! Isn't that okay? Right?

The second sentence just speaks for itself. To echo those sentiments, the Christian nations may say they are loving, but if they don't act on it then I'm going with the evil atheist nation that doesn't mention every sentence how loving it is whilst it helps the poor.

[Eris]

Has this article even undergone any sort of peer review? I get the feeling that the author went straight to the press, which loves to report this sort of thing and never reports the critical peer review (see all of the "power of prayer" medical studies which always get reported immediately while subsequent peer debunkings are ignored).

There's a .pdf on the author's site that seems to imply that this is a direct from survey to press affair. It's listed as a press release, without any citation to a journal article, or upcoming release in a more formal media.

This appears to be par for the course for his research, too. While he's listed as having over 70 journal articles, they don't actually list where any of them are, but do mention he's written pieces for a host of (named) newspapers and unreviewed periodicals, as well as mention a number of the books he's published. Furthermore, the sub-page listing his papers and articles lacks full citation to any peer reviewed source, it does include mention of a number of unreviewed writings, so it's very hard to get a good idea of the quality of his scholarship.

Technically he's innocent until proven guilty, but with plenty of references to the Toronto Star and National Post, and not a single citation I could find to a peer-reviewed source I'm coloured sceptical.

[Starglider]

A large fraction of humanity deludes itself into thinking that they're good people when they're actually being bastards (arguably just about everyone does this occassionally, to some extent). However religious people are inherently more prone to it, since they've based their entire mindset around self-delusion, wishful thinking and believing words are more important than reality. Thus there's a very strong correlation between how religious someone is and how out of line their image of themselves is with the reality of their actions. There's a reason why 'self-righteous' is a core feature of the fundamentalist stereotype.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Even if it were true, it hardly means that atheism is 'immoral', or that, indeed, the dictum "love thy neighbor" holds any moral or ethical value. "What is done out of love lies beyond good and evil" - and for this reason can very often be dangerous.

[Darth Wong]

A large fraction of humanity deludes itself into thinking that they're good people when they're actually being bastards (arguably just about everyone does this occassionally, to some extent). However religious people are inherently more prone to it, since they've based their entire mindset around self-delusion, wishful thinking and believing words are more important than reality. Thus there's a very strong correlation between how religious someone is and how out of line their image of themselves is with the reality of their actions. There's a reason why 'self-righteous' is a core feature of the fundamentalist stereotype.

While this is true, I don't know if it's even necessary to explain this phenomenon. As I said, Christians are conditioned over a lifetime to use the word "love" in a very insincere way. They throw it around so much that it becomes almost meaningless, especially when they speak of loving their enemies.

[General Brock]

A large fraction of humanity deludes itself into thinking that they're good people when they're actually being bastards (arguably just about everyone does this occassionally, to some extent). However religious people are inherently more prone to it, since they've based their entire mindset around self-delusion, wishful thinking and believing words are more important than reality. Thus there's a very strong correlation between how religious someone is and how out of line their image of themselves is with the reality of their actions. There's a reason why 'self-righteous' is a core feature of the fundamentalist stereotype.

While this is true, I don't know if it's even necessary to explain this phenomenon. As I said, Christians are conditioned over a lifetime to use the word "love" in a very insincere way. They throw it around so much that it becomes almost meaningless, especially when they speak of loving their enemies.

It is. Most people are passingly aware of this phenomenon, as they are of others, but not in so many words that can be thought about and applied critically.




Good luck WP. Do your people proud.