Can Charitable Status Be Removed From Religion?

ImaginalDisc said:
I think the reason that China isn't considered a First World nation is that it is still developing resources, and isn't close to as developed as most European nations, the United States, or Canada. Yes, China's economy is very big, but what's staggering is that it has plenty of room to grow still.
Click to expand...
I'd say that's an interesting supposition, and I think the terms "first world" and "third World" are long out of date.

China is a varsity player on the world stage, and has been since it got a seat on the Security Council. The appeals to "third world" and developing are a cynical political ploy. The aim is to accrue a political advantage, or an advantage in argument.

Politics, not substance.

DR
 
Hawk one said:
Seriously, and I'm really, really serious here, have you ever taken a statistics course in your entire life? And have you really actually understood it?
Click to expand...

Seriously --- and I'm really, really, serious here -- I've not only taken statistics courses, but I've taught them, and published peer-reviewed articles in top-flight journals on the subject.

In a universe of nations, the United States is an individual nation. And in many respects, an outlier -- it's more or less the only prosperous first world nation with as high a "religiosity" score as it has; almost all of the other nation-states that test as high on religious belief as the USA are third-world nations.

If you want to see this kind of research, check this report here (and its rebuttal here). Note that Dr. Paul is attempting to establish exactly what ID would like to see -- that there is a negative correlation between a society's degree of religiosity and its health, although Paul is looking at other factors than poverty. And in the context of this study, the point on the various graphs labelled "U" is eactly that -- a single point, and in many/most graphs, an unrepresentative outlier. Paul's figure 7, in particular, shows this most clearly -- the United States is practically off the graph w.r.t. the other data points, which suggests that any "correlation" among this data has little to do with anything (and any reputable statistican would have treated a data set this noisy with much more respect than Paul has.)

Now, of course, I could easily "cook the books" and do another study, padding the list of countries with highly religious third world countries to make religion look bad. I could also cook the books in the other direction by including lots of former-Soviet bloc countries that look really bad in terms of poverty and societal health but that have low religiosity rates. Or I could do a proper study and look at at several matched collections -- for example, do a Western-Europe substudy, a Soviet-bloc substudy, and a Subsaharan-Africa substudy -- to control for possible outliers.

But in no case would I be able to say -- "look, there's a single point on the graph -- therefore there is no correlation." Or even "look, there's a single point -- therefore there is a correlation." Because statistics doesn't work like that.
 
Antiquehunter said:
But, don't you find that even MORE insidious??? A screaming, agonized child, wracked with starvation or disease is given out rice... AND a hidden message.

Wouldn't it be better just to hand out the food and medicine and hold church services down the road for the ones who are not clinging to life from desperation...???
Click to expand...
How dare you try to keep the thread on topic!

The bottom line for me is very simple.

If the choice was food with or without the bibles, I'd plump for without, every time. I'm not an apologist for christianity, it's just that it ain't ALL bad.

If the choice is food + bibles or no food, my choice is even easier. I've played along with the god-thingy while our sponsored kids are growing up, but once they're out of the clutches of the christians, I will have the opportunity of trying to reverse the crud they've been spoon-fed along with the real food.

There isn't an easy answer, but removal of charitable status doesn't look like a viable option, to me.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
P.S. While China isn't 1st world, it has a strong economy, and it has a disturbing lack of Christians. How does that fit?
Click to expand...
Psshh.

This is all your strawman, honey, you go argue it. Some of us live in a real world, with real people in it.
 
Darth Rotor said:
I'd say that's an interesting supposition, and I think the terms "first world" and "third World" are long out of date.

China is a varsity player on the world stage, and has been since it got a seat on the Security Council. The appeals to "third world" and developing are a cynical political ploy. The aim is to accrue a political advantage, or an advantage in argument.

Politics, not substance.

DR
Click to expand...

You know, those are good points. We should be talking about the wealthiest countries, irrespective of "First World" status. It's not subjective.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
P.S. Wait a second, those papers are irrelevant.
Click to expand...

:notm:

They're a smoke screen.
Click to expand...

:notm:

They have nothing at all to do with poverty.
Click to expand...

... which I specifically said, if you had read my posting. "[T]here is a negative correlation between a society's degree of religiosity and its health, although Paul is looking at other factors than poverty."

On the other hand, they do a very good job of illustrating the statistical methods involved in trying to draw national correlations between national traits, and the issue of whether or not you can use a single data point to invalidate a proposed correlation.

Or, more tersely,

:notm:
 
drkitten said:
:notm:



:notm:



... which I specifically said, if you had read my posting. "[T]here is a negative correlation between a society's degree of religiosity and its health, although Paul is looking at other factors than poverty."

On the other hand, they do a very good job of illustrating the statistical methods involved in trying to draw national correlations between national traits, and the issue of whether or not you can use a single data point to invalidate a proposed correlation.

Or, more tersely,

:notm:
Click to expand...

So what, you're deliberately showing that you cannot follow the thread of the conversation?

Amoung the ten wealthiest countries as ranked by, say, GDP (purchasing parity), https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

. . the four with the hieghest poverty rates are India, China, Russia and the U.S. Two of those are extremely religious, and two are not. The six countries with lower poverty rates have conspicuouslly fewer religious citisens. You can't just wave off the U.S. as a data point here.
 
Last edited:
ImaginalDisc said:
. . the four with the hieghest poverty rates are India, China, Russia and the U.S. Two of those are extremely religious, and two are not. The six countries with lower poverty rates have conspicuouslly fewer religious citisens. You can't just wave off the U.S. as a data point here.
Click to expand...

So you admit that you need to look at the data distribution as a whole and analyze multiple points? Good. That's my central poitn.

Now you need to convince the reader that your data set is actually representative. Since GDP is more a function of the population of the country than of anything else, I rather doubt you can do that. But at least you've stopped trying to draw regression lines through single points.
 
drkitten said:
So you admit that you need to look at the data distribution as a whole and analyze multiple points? Good. That's my central poitn.

Now you need to convince the reader that your data set is actually representative. Since GDP is more a function of the population of the country than of anything else, I rather doubt you can do that. But at least you've stopped trying to draw regression lines through single points.
Click to expand...

I wasn't saying that the U.S. shows a correlation between religiosity and poverty, I was criticizing TheAtheist's claim towards the opposite!

Read rather than assume!
 
ImaginalDisc said:
I wasn't saying that the U.S. shows a correlation between religiosity and poverty, I was criticizing TheAtheist's claim towards the opposite!
Click to expand...

No, you were saying that a single example (data from a single country) disproved his claim of a correlation.

Your criticism was ill-founded.
 
drkitten said:
No, you were saying that a single example (data from a single country) disproved his claim of a correlation.

Your criticism was ill-founded.
Click to expand...

I said that it was difficult to reconcile. It would be prudent to account for it. You behaved as though nothing needed to be done to account for it. You saw fit to ignore it. You infered that I meant it disproved it. You even used entirely the wrong term to refer to the poverty rate in the U.S., "anecdote." You were cavalier in the extreme.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
I said that it was difficult to reconcile.
Click to expand...

No, you said that the correlation (which is of course a statistical measure) does not exist.

Here are your exact words (emphasis added) , in case you want to eat them:

The U.S. is conspicuously religious.

The U.S. has conspicuously high poverty rates.

Ergo, religiosity does not correlate with low poverty rates.
Click to expand...

Funny how the phrase "difficult to reconcile" doesn't appear in the post which I criticized. Perhaps you want to "reconcile" what you actually said with what you actually meant?


You behaved as though nothing needed to be done to account for it. You saw fit to ignore it.
Click to expand...

That's because there's sufficiently little "power" in a single outlier that nothing need be done to account for it. From a statistical point of view, there's literally nothing there to account for.

You infered that I meant it disproved it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I cavalierly assumed that when you wrote "religiosity does not correlate with low povery rates," you meant "religiosity does not correlate with low poverty rates" -- and that when you listed this as the conclusion of an argument, you meant that the statement's truth could be validly inferred from the truth of the premises.
 
Let's imagine that you were completely, perfectly right in every way. (Ha, but let's imagine.)

In what way does :notm: constitute an explanation of your position?
 
drkitten said:
No, you said that the correlation (which is of course a statistical measure) does not exist.

Here are your exact words (emphasis added) , in case you want to eat them:



Funny how the phrase "difficult to reconcile" doesn't appear in the post which I criticized. Perhaps you want to "reconcile" what you actually said with what you actually meant?




That's because there's sufficiently little "power" in a single outlier that nothing need be done to account for it. From a statistical point of view, there's literally nothing there to account for.



Yes, I cavalierly assumed that when you wrote "religiosity does not correlate with low povery rates," you meant "religiosity does not correlate with low poverty rates" -- and that when you listed this as the conclusion of an argument, you meant that the statement's truth could be validly inferred from the truth of the premises.
Click to expand...

France, Noway, Sweden, and many other countries have low poverty rates, and are not particuarly religious. How does that factor into this idea that religiosity correlates with low poverty rates?

Are we perhaps operating under different values of correlation? What's good enough to make you flash :notm: at every dissenting view, .8, .7?
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Regardless of your opinion of me, and my opinion of you, you loathsome apologist, there are other participants, and lurkers besides. You show no interest in explanation your position to anyone.
Click to expand...

On the contrary. When Hawk asked, I was happy to provide a fuller explanation.

Or, more tersely, :notm:
 
drkitten said:
On the contrary. When Hawk asked, I was happy to provide a fuller explanation.

Or, more tersely, :notm:
Click to expand...

So, you reply to my post, make a statement, and then refuse to explain it to the person you addressed.

That's shockingly arrogant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom