----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 7:51 PM Subject: Re: The dark side of faith
> > On Oct 3, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> > > Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 7:13 PM > > Subject: Re: The dark side of faith > > > > > >> Perhaps members of dysfunctional societies find solace in religion. > >> > >> Dave "horse, cart", is not the same as "cart, horse" Land > >> > > > > Or, even old dying societies have different problems than younger > > societies. :-) > > Sure, that works, too. Or even that the same things (it's always > multivariate) that predispose a society to the dysfunctions described > in the article also predispose it to a higher level of religiosity. > > What doesn't work for me is the assumption of causality and the > presumption that the direction of that causality is understood. Sure....and if the study really wanted to check that conclusion, it would have included other data that it "happened" to ignore....such as correlations between religious devotion and the various rates in a given country over a period of time. If this were done, say, since WWII, we'd see the exact opposite effect. And, the multi-causal nature of these trends are also interesting. For example, the US is, by far, the country that has been the most multi-ethnic and multi-racial of the developed countries. Japan's xenophobia is overwhelming. Europeans would rather fade away than include Turks in "real" Europe. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
