"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"

NecroSteve

Read this!
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/

partyatmygaff

Your post sounds an awful lot like:
"Oh look, statistics show that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group. Come on everyone, let's all congratulate ourselves on how a certain study perceived other members of our group."

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter a damn if some study says "Group A is more likely to be motivated by X". Every person is different and should be received on their own merits, not by the merits of the label they've given themselves.

NecroSteve

Stop trolling. I'm not saying anything about anyone. I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are.

Gumbi

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Your post sounds an awful lot like:
"Oh look, statistics show that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group. Come on everyone, let's all congratulate ourselves on how a certain study perceived other members of our group."

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter a damn if some study says "Group A is more likely to be motivated by X". Every person is different and should be received on their own merits, not by the merits of the label they've given themselves.

It kind of does, most especially for the reason just mentioned.

enfant terrible

Ok look I found a study that says religious people are better

"Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions."

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577

partyatmygaff

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Your post sounds an awful lot like:
"Oh look, statistics show that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group. Come on everyone, let's all congratulate ourselves on how a certain study perceived other members of our group."

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter a damn if some study says "Group A is more likely to be motivated by X". Every person is different and should be received on their own merits, not by the merits of the label they've given themselves.

You're right, like I've heard that ingesting lead is more likely to be harmful than ingesting water but I think it's silly to believe that, I'll base what I think on each individual instance of lead ingestion I come across.

partyatmygaff

NecroSteve wrote: »

Stop trolling. I'm not saying anything about anyone. I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are.

For one, a religion and its set of adherents are two different things. The intrinsic values of an idea and the values actually expressed by individuals who claim to adhere to that idea aren't always one and the same. Secondly, I don't think i've heard of many religions who don't try to actually convince people of their beliefs but rely on "Look at us, aren't we all just lovely people?".

Also look up the meaning of troll, it's not "Someone who doesn't agree with you" as you seem to think.

partyatmygaff

Deleted User wrote: »

You're right, like I've heard that ingesting lead is more likely to be harmful than ingesting water but I think it's silly to believe that, I'll base what I think on each individual instance of lead ingestion I come across.

Logic: People are unique and think differently to one another. Atoms of lead generally aren't too different to one another. Therefore trying to compare psychological studies to lead ingestion at an attempt of making a witty quip is silly.

MagicMarker

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Your post sounds an awful lot like:
"Oh look, statistics show that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group. Come on everyone, let's all congratulate ourselves on how a certain study perceived other members of our group."

Wow, you've taken all that from the OPs post? All two words and one link of it?

mikhail

I think people are getting a little too heated over the first reply.

MagicMarker wrote: »

Wow, you've taken all that from the OPs post? All two words and one link of it?

It's a pretty common direction this sort of thing takes. Let's face it, if a religious person posted a link to a study finding the opposite, we'd be pretty defensive as a group.

So all he means, I think, is let's keep the result in perspective. It's one study, quite possibly flawed.

partyatmygaff

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Logic: People are unique and think differently to one another. Atoms of lead generally aren't too different to one another. Therefore trying to compare psychological studies to lead ingestion at an attempt of making a witty quip is silly.

Never know what would be the case if we didn't observe it either so there's that too.

partyatmygaff

MagicMarker wrote: »

Wow, you've taken all that from the OPs post? All two words and one link of it?

"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers." followed by just a "Read this!" would seem to imply that he agrees with the results of the study and is simply trying to point score against religion. Given that he followed up with "I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are." I don't think my initial perception of his post was unreasonable.

AskJives

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Your post sounds an awful lot like:
"Oh look, statistics show that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group. Come on everyone, let's all congratulate ourselves on how a certain study perceived other members of our group."

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter a damn if some study says "Group A is more likely to be motivated by X". Every person is different and should be received on their own merits, not by the merits of the label they've given themselves.

Agree 100%.
Actually, why are there so many 'anti-religion/we're better than religious types/etc etc' threads in A&A forum

As I write this I am checking out the Christianity forums. I dont see any "anti-atheist" threads Just people talking about their beliefs. But here, it seems that 2 out of 3 threads are about the catholic church Page 1 on here has loads.

MagicMarker

partyatmygaff wrote: »

"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers." followed by just a "Read this!" would seem to imply that he agrees with the results of the study and is simply trying to point score against religion. Given that he followed up with "I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are." I don't think my initial perception of his post was unreasonable.

Or maybe he just wanted to post a study about stuff that's related to the general stuff that's discussed in the A&A forum? But of course a thread wouldn't be complete in this forum without a Christian acting all persecuted and shít, so thanks for that.

AskJives wrote: »

Agree 100%.
Actually, why are there so many 'anti-religion/we're better than religious types/etc etc' threads in A&A forum

As I write this I am checking out the Christianity forums. I dont see any "anti-atheist" threads Just people talking about their beliefs. But here, it seems that 2 out of 3 threads are about the catholic church Page 1 on here has loads.

Errr.... what would you like us to talk about?

AskJives

MagicMarker wrote: »

Errr.... what would you like us to talk about?

So .. the entire point of the A&A forums is to bash about Religion? In your view

Galvasean

Well this thread is quite the clusterfunk...

Thanks for the link OP. It will be a useful thing to know about the next time a Holy Joe tries to tell me atheists can't be moral.

MagicMarker

AskJives wrote: »

So .. the entire point of the A&A forums is to bash about Religion? In your view

How on earth did you take that from what I said?

You're the one complaining about people talking about religion in the A&A forum, so what would you suggest we talk about?

Galvasean

For the love of... Do we really need another "What is the A&A forum for?" thread :rolleyes:

partyatmygaff

MagicMarker wrote: »

Or maybe he just wanted to post a study about stuff that's related to the general stuff that's discussed in the A&A forum? But of course a thread wouldn't be complete in this forum without a Christian acting all persecuted and shít, so thanks for that.

Where did I ever say or imply that I felt i'm being "persecuted and shít"? If someone on the Christianity forum said "Study reveals that atheists are less likely to be charitable than Christians" you'd have armies of people descending on the thread either trying to make out that the study is invalid and/or saying similar to what I said in my first post.

HUNK

Galvasean wrote: »

For the love of... Do we really need another "What is the A&A forum for?" thread :rolleyes:

Discussing baby recipes.

Delirium

The study deals with the motivation behind acts of generosity, kindness etc. It says that non-religious act out of compassion for others more often than religious people. The religious people do it for "other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns".

It's not saying one group is better than the other, just that there are different motivators behind the act for each group. It shows that religious people aren't motivated by compassion as much as non-religious.

MagicMarker

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Where did I ever say or imply that I felt i'm being "persecuted and shít"? If someone on the Christianity forum said "Study reveals that atheists are less likely to be charitable than Christians" you'd have armies of people descending on the thread either trying to make out that the study is invalid and/or saying similar to what I said in my first post.

I have no problem with you saying the study is invalid or not, but you didn't do that you just went ahead on a rant about how the OP was just trying to point score against religions. It was pointless and unnecessary.

Turtwig

So is this a good study then?

MagicMarker

Jernal wrote: »

So is this a good study then?

The best.

christmas2012

if you look at the latest cardianal / smyth scandal it seems to ring true..

partyatmygaff

MagicMarker wrote: »

I have no problem with you saying the study is invalid or not, but you didn't do that you just went ahead on a rant about how the OP was just trying to point score against religions. It was pointless and unnecessary.

If I hadn't posted my first reply, how do you think this thread would have progressed?

"Ah yes, that's a fascinating correlation but i'm not sure if many solid conclusions can be made from it" or would it have progressed to posts that more or less revolved around "Pfft, all religious people care about is their religion and doctrine while atheists like us are motivated by human compassion"?

Coriolanus

Galvasean wrote: »

For the love of... Do we really need another "What is the A&A forum for?" thread :rolleyes:

Yeah, I thought this was settled. We're here to swap baby recipes and conspire to oppress Christians.

Edit: Hunk beat me to it.

Turtwig

partyatmygaff wrote: »

If I hadn't posted my first reply, how do you think this thread would have progressed?

"Ah yes, that's a fascinating correlation but i'm not sure if many solid conclusions can be made from it" or would it have progressed to posts that more or less revolved around "Pfft, all religious people care about is their religion and doctrine while atheists like us are motivated by human compassion"?

So what if it had, why didn't you wait and see what would happen? You just preempted something based on a condescending assumption. Is it comfy up there on that high horse?

partyatmygaff

Jernal wrote: »

So what if it had, why didn't you wait and see what would happen? You just preempted something based on a condescending assumption. Is it comfy up there on that high horse?

I didn't wait and see what would happen as I (And evidently so do a few others) knew from experience what would have been the likely thread progression.

As a matter of interest, how do you honestly think the thread would have progressed?

fitz0

Nevore wrote: »

Yeah, I thought this was settled. We're here to swap baby recipes and conspire to oppress Christians.

Edit: Hunk beat me to it.

Don't forget the War on Christmas. We have much planning to do before this coming winter solstice.

Turtwig

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I didn't wait and see what would happen as I (And evidently so do a few others) knew from experience what would have been the likely thread progression.

As a matter of interest, how do you honestly think the thread would have progressed?

Against my better hopes, more or less how it actually went. Had you refrained someone body else would most probably have made some vague offhand point trying to dismiss the study as you but that in no way justifies your initial post. You assumed the worst from the start and that's just cynical and wrong. I still pray for the day that I'm wrong and a thread like this descends into a discussion about the actual study's merits. Something which nobody has even mentioned so far. Out of interest, how many people have actually read the study yet?

Turtwig

enfant terrible wrote: »

Ok look I found a study that says religious people are better

"Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions."

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577

Of course it could be just because those who are in the position to devoutly practice a religion by regularly attending worship are also in the position to donate money.

If I was to found a new religion then one of my books of doctrine would be this. Then people might stop linking to silly meaningless statistical statements. One can only hope. . .
(Tufte's Visual Display of Quantitative Information would come next.)

sponsoredwalk

NecroSteve wrote: »

Stop trolling. I'm not saying anything about anyone. I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are.

You're "not saying anything about anyone" in this thread? You mean a claim like "Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"" is not saying anything about anyone?

MagicMarker wrote: »

Wow, you've taken all that from the OPs post? All two words and one link of it?

Someone posts a link to black people acting stupidly on some Aryan white pride website & says "watch this".

Someone posts a video of a guy with a wife hitting on multiple women in a stipper bar on some womens website & says "watch this".

Someone posts a picture of an Israeli settler throwing wine on a Palestinian women in the streets on a pro-Palestinian website & says "look at this".

Someone makes a video about Muslim clerics talking about overthrowing the West on an EDL website & says "Read this!".

...

...

...

But no, in our case there's absolutely no reason whatsoever in the entire world to assume that the sentence "Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"" is saying that "that the group I identify with is more likely to be motivated by compassion than the 'other' group"
No reason in the world...

Dades

The title of that study is a bit "Daily Mail" really.

Not really worth the subsequent handbags.

ShooterSF

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I didn't wait and see what would happen as I (And evidently so do a few others) knew from experience what would have been the likely thread progression.

As a matter of interest, how do you honestly think the thread would have progressed?

You make a good point and should be free to do so my fellow human being.





(Yay, score one for the compassionate atheists. In your face!)

MrPudding

christmas2012 wrote: »

if you look at the latest cardianal / smyth scandal it seems to ring true..

That is exactly what I was thinking. I know lizards with more compassion than that prick.

MrP

MagicMarker

For the record, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the 2nd paragraph of the 2nd post.

I haven't read the study, don't intend to, don't care either way. There could be millions of studies just like this saying christians or athesits are 'better', it doesn't change the basic facts at the end of the day.

Galvasean

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I didn't wait and see what would happen as I (And evidently so do a few others) knew from experience what would have been the likely thread progression.

You aborted the thread

qrrgprgua

NecroSteve wrote: »

Stop trolling. I'm not saying anything about anyone. I just think this is interesting because so many religions sell themselves on how compassionate they allegedly are.

I don't see many Atheist organisations donating millions to good causes. Then again you didn't define what "Highly religious means" After all in the story of the Good Samaritain it was a high religous person who passed the man by.. And the Samaratain who helped was not considered highly religious.. But was used as an example of what Christians should do.

joseph brand

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I don't see many Atheist organisations donating millions to good causes. Then again you didn't define what "Highly religious means" After all in the story of the Good Samaritain it was a high religous person who passed the man by.. And the Samaratain who helped was not considered highly religious.. But was used as an example of what Christians should do.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But you knew that already. They have a couple of quid too.

partyatmygaff

joseph brand wrote: »

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But you knew that already. They have a couple of quid too.

How is the Bill and Melinda Gate's foundation an "atheist organisation"? For one, it doesn't advertise itself as being in any way related to atheism or secularism and secondly there's probably a very broad mix of people involved with the foundation and its work.

Turtwig

I would condemn any atheist organisation that donates money to charity in the name of atheism. That's utter stupidity.

Also, since when does is money a decent measure of how nice or how much of dickhead someone is?

Dades

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I don't see many Atheist organisations donating millions to good causes.

Perhaps that's because atheism isn't a cause, it's a noun.

Galvasean

fitz0 wrote: »

Don't forget the War on Christmas.

We're not supposed to use a capital C in that word.

fitz0

Egad! A War on Capitalisation?

those christians won't know what to think.

kylith

partyatmygaff wrote: »

How is the Bill and Melinda Gate's foundation an "atheist organisation"? For one, it doesn't advertise itself as being in any way related to atheism or secularism and secondly there's probably a very broad mix of people involved with the foundation and its work.

So, because an atheist doesn't make a point of the fact that they're atheist while their doing their good works it doesn't count?

My reading of the article in the OP is not that atheists are more likely to donate to charity, but that when they do it's motivated by compassion whereas the higly religious are more likely to donate because they think their god is watching and making notes.

The highly religious are more likely to do good to earn points with god, atheists are more likely to do good because it's the right thing to do.

partyatmygaff

kylith wrote: »

So, because an atheist doesn't make a point of the fact that they're atheist while their doing their good works it doesn't count?

It counts for them as a person, not their label.

My reading of the article in the OP is not that atheists are more likely to donate to charity, but that when they do it's motivated by compassion whereas the higly religious are more likely to donate because they think their god is watching and making notes.

True for some, not for all. Pointless exercise really.

The highly religious are more likely to do good to earn points with god, atheists are more likely to do good because it's the right thing to do.

Which doesn't translate to "atheists are more compassionate than highly religious people". Your actions and not the actions of people you share something in common with are accredited to you.

gaynorvader

partyatmygaff wrote: »

It counts for them as a person, not their label.

Yet, they're still atheist/christian/muslim/etc. So it would still count towards their label if someone were inclined to survey/study it.

partyatmygaff wrote:

True for some, not for all...

That's the problem with statistics in a nutshell.

partyatmygaff wrote:

Which doesn't translate to "atheists are more compassionate than highly religious people".

True, it does however translate into "Atheists are more likely to be motivated by compassion when making decisions about donating to a charity than a highly religious person". Considering that's what the report was saying, and is nothing more that a mild curiosity, I don't know why you are being so militant against it. Is it because the title of the article is inflammitory?

partyatmygaff wrote:

Your actions and not the actions of people you share something in common with are accredited to you.

This is completely false. Perhaps that's the way it should be, but it certaintly is not the way it is now. Actions of people in a group you associate yourself with are constantly being accredited to other individuals within the group.

Galvasean

fitz0 wrote: »

Egad! A War on Capitalisation?

those christians won't know what to think.

tHEY WILL THINK WHAT we TELL THEM TO THINK1111

sponsoredwalk

Memories....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_U6RGt8V88

smithcity

Ok, so rather than stick my oar in on the argument I went ahead and read the article posted by the OP. I think the key word is the opening word of the title, "Highly".

To me it makes sense that "Highly" religious people will think that a person in need will be looked after by god, or that the problems they face in this life will be rewarded in the next life.
On the other hand, a person with no belief in an afterlife or an interventionist god is more likely to believe that a needy person can only get help or relief from other people.

It logically follows that if you believe that a person can only receive help from other people, you are more likely to feel a sense of responsibility to help a needy person in some way.

The article referenced by the OP claims, "In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous". I think that the choice of the word "compassion" isn't necessarily correct though, I think it's more likely that the generosity of those people was driven by a sense of responsibility rather than compassion.