Monday, January 4, 2010

'Atheist' Nations Are More Peaceful

14 comments:

  1. Correlation does not mean causation. Assuming this data is accurate, we cannot know for sure how much it is that religion causes violence, that violence causes religion, or that something else causes both. This may only show that less stable countries that are prone to violence are unable to create the kind of education and resources that foster an environment for atheism.

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  2. I agree. And although the information being presented here is by no means surprising, there are missing variables..as well as the obvious citations.

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  3. Even if it isnt that case that atheism CAUSED the decrease in violence this disproves the claim that Ateism leads to lawlessness, crime, and all kinds of depravity.

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  4. Its unclear how GPI defines "peace"

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  5. I would much rather if this had been a graphical display than some music backed production.  I dont need dramatics to figure out possible links.   Justsayin. 

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  6. I did a Yahoo Answers question containing the same data, asking Christians to explain it if they believe that atheists are less likely to be ethical than theists. The question was later removed by an admin. I kindly asked for an email copy of it because of all the work I put into formatting it, but never got a reply. *sigh*

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  7. - As Og said, this is only a correlation. By the way, Vatican is, I guess, 99,99% catholic, and they're quite peacefull. ;)

    - some of the data seems wrong : atheists 54% in France ??? Sorry, but according to polls, that number should be around 30% (and in most polls, this numbers combines atheists AND agnostics)
    source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France

    - 99% muslims in somalia ? Well, since 44% of Somalians are under 14, that is what I call child labelling...
    (source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Somalia )

    - saying "atheism = peace" is just as useless as saying "atheism gave us Hitler in Germany and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia" : this is not the point. just because believing in something or not believing in it makes you peaceful, doesn't mean it's the truth.

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  8. As already said, this correlation proves nothing about Atheists being more peaceful. It does prove, however, that being more religious doesn't promote more peace. Who cares about this argument? It seems that Christians are more prone to use this argument, and this video discredits that argument.

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  9. "<span>atheists 54% in France ??? Sorry, but according to polls, that number should be around 30%"</span>

    (Shrug)  It still ranks as one of the most atheist countries.  Plus, most of those Christians in France are nominal Christians anyway.  Just lookup church attendence numbers.  "53% of Americans consider religion to be very important in their lives. This compares with 16% in Britain, 14% in France and 13% in Germany." (http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_ratefor.htm)

    <span>"99% muslims in somalia ? Well, since 44% of Somalians are under 14, that is what I call child labelling..."</span>

    Er - what's your point with that?  Should Somalia be considered 55% Muslim?  (Which is wrong.)  Or, should we simply say that 99% of Somali Adults are Muslim?  In which case -- your argument goes nowhere because Somalia is still at 99%.

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  10. Since more than 60% people here call themselves catholics, France is not exactly an atheist country, as one would think reading the 54% figure.

    Sure, most christian believers in France don't go to church. But the "christian roots" are still there, I think.
    On the other hand, politicians usually don't use the christian card (as opposed as what happens in the USA), actually some of them seem to think that the fear of muslims is a more powerful tool to get votes.

    The figure used in the video is completely wrong. I checked this one because I live in France, but if there are other numbers in this video that are as wrong as this one, then the study is useless. When you use figures, you have to be as accurate as possible.
    A 20% margin of error is not what I would call accurate.

    About children in Somalia : well, I didn't really have a point with that one. ;)

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  11. The issue, I think, is the fact that we have some people describing themselves as christians and, at the same time, telling you they don't believe in any god. Depending on how the poll is made, they will be said to be either catholics or atheists... I guess most polls don't allow you to choose both.
    This might explain why you can see that most poll tend to show about 50% christians and 30% atheists, while when you just ask "do you believe in god", you get more atheists.

    So basically, the question is, if someone says he's catholic but does not believe in god, is he catholic ? Atheist ? both ? something else ?

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  12. Being Atheist doesn't always mean peace. Life right now is peace but what about eternal life? Is you don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world and you deny him thats not going to be very peaceful when your spending it in Hell. The only reason the countries that practiced Christianity weren't in the most peaceful categories isn't because of them but because of others who make it hard for people to practice Christianity. I'm not surprised that the muslim countries weren't at all close to peace. Actually Israel isn't as bad as it said on there. There have been people who have been to visit the country as told me that it's not bad like the media said it is. It was very peaceful for them. This group doesn't just go visit as tourists either. They go all over. Sure you see officers with massive weapons but that just means good security. Israel is surrounded by muslim countries they need to be protecting themselves as well. If you've been listening to the news, Israel actually has the best airport security I think that the U.S. should really be taking a few tips from them.

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  13. I don't think current patterns are enough to judge.  Whatever atheism's impact on countries, it has had far less time to make that impact, compared with the history of religious influence.

    Cultural change moves slowly and if atheism does lead to lawlessness then today is too soon to say it doesn't (or does for that matter).

    I say we wait and see.  Let's re-examine this question is 2200.  See you then.

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  14. "Is you don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world and you deny him thats not going to be very peaceful when your spending it in Hell."

    Are you threatening us?

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