If Hitchen's challenge is correct, then why are there ethical lapses?

[Kasz216]

dsgrue3 said:

Kasz216 said:

dsgrue3 said:

Kasz216 said:

A) That's a perfectly fine sample size.  It's lab work.  You won't find much bigger sample sizes for that kind of thing.  It's not a freakin survey.

B) They weren't fake dollars.  That's just a misreporting of the study.

C) It's consistant with all other research.

D) Not really... that's the way the researcher decided to interpret it... being an ahteist herself who admitted to be specifically looking for that result.

Let me ask you a question though...

Do you think those people just didn't know how much it sucked to be a starving child in Africa?  Seems unlikely right?  Everybody has seen those videos before... everybody knows what a starving child in africa is like.  Everyone knows what starving is.

So why no compassion for the starving children when not shown the video?  Why only after being shown a video reminding them just how horrible it is over there?

Seems less like motivated by compassion and more motivated by guilt to me.  Or a breaking through of a deadening to others problems.  Where only by it being shown can people ackowledge just what's going on.

.

E) Your arguement in D was pushing the goalposts anyway.  Since like I said... atehists more often need to be prodded to give to charity.  As was shown. 

 

A) It's a small sample size and there is no disputing that. 

B) They were fake dollars. Start reading:

http://www.livescience.com/20005-atheists-motivated-compassion.html

C) No idea to what you're referring. 

D) Your evidence that Robb Willer or Laura Saslow are atheists and set out to prove a certain hypothesis? Let me guess, none. Of course not, because I have the exact words from the authors of the study itself disproving exactly as you have said. 

"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," said UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a co-author of the study.

"We hypothesized that religion would change how compassion impacts generous behavior," said study lead author Laura Saslow, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley.

Furthermore, it goes on to state this:

"Saslow, who is now a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Francisco, said she was inspired to examine this question after an altruistic, nonreligious friend lamented that he had only donated to earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti after watching an emotionally stirring video of a woman being saved from the rubble, not because of a logical understanding that help was needed."

E) That isn't what is confirmed by the study at all and it has become abundantly clear that you A) Misunderstood the findings or B) Never read them.

And LOL@moving the goalposts coming from the guy when pressed for a source on theists being more moral than atheists talks about some study about charity under the guise of morality when the two are not the same. Work on retaining your own thoughts so I don't have to abuse you by parroting your nonsense back to your face.

No, the reality of the situation is that atheists are indeed more altruistic than their theist counterparts. This is simply common sense.

The religious animosity toward homosexuality, other religions (and non), condemnation of "sinners", raping and sodomizing children, etc.

 

 

I found a separate study about giving money that seems similar to what you were describing, but it doesn't involve Africa.

http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Shariff_Norenzayan.pdf

Findings:

 

Although unprimed atheists left slightly less than did unprimed theists ($0.97), this trend was weak and was not statistically significant,t(23)51.34, p5.19, prep5.73. Self-reported belief in God, as a continuous measure, was not a good predictor of how much subjects left in the control condition.

 

 

In summary, implicit priming of God concepts did increase prosocial behavior (i.e., increased how much subjects left for an anonymous stranger), and this effect was observed for both theists and atheists.

 

 

 

A)  It's only a small sample size if you've never taken a class in expiermental methods.  100 candidates is generally a high number as far as a school or research boards IRB is concerned for such a project.

B)  That was specifically the faulty reporting I was talking about.  Like... the exact article.  Which is why i asked if you had scientific journal access.  Though regardless, I would point out that it's a scientific given that people act similarly with fake money as they do real money.  Simply because greedy people are generally greedy through self justification.

C)  The fact that research keeps showing this... over... and over again. 

D)  Nice job deflecting.  I guess i remembered that part wrong.  Thought it was because SHE was upset at how she donated in regards to Haiti.  It still in no way diminishes the actual points that you did a nice job trying to deflect from though.  Again, look back up at D and ask yourself... "Which is more likely."

Seems pretty obvious.

E) How isn't charity morality? It's the one thing that's more or less been seen as universally moral.  Sacrificing for others.  So unless you don't believe in moral relativism... I can't think of a better measure. 

A) Don't care, again 100 people leaves a 10% error.

B) Yeah, I'm sure every article that cites the study is wrong. LOL

C) Okay, source? Again, you've brought nothing to the table at all. And I've actually brought a counter-source, or did you miss that? 

D) Deflecting? haha, I made it abundantly clear that you don't have a damn clue what you're talking about and showed you the facts of the matter. It was not her atheism, but her friend's atheism which prompted the study. No, I don't have to think "what is most likely" I can read exactly why and don't need to assume, which you continue to do. Not very wise, not very wise at all.

E) Charity is an example of moral behavior, but it is not morality. Confining morality to one example and then making a judgement upon it is quite dimwitted.

It's pretty clear you have nothing to bring to the table and don't understand much about research, debate, morality, etc.

See ya.

A).  Your continued arguement of this point is just pure ignorance to social science Research methods...

B) Every article?  No... but quite a few do. If you follow science in the media at all, you sould know this.  They always get studies wrong and exagerrate what they say.

C) Your source wasn't a counter source.  That was talking about... God priming.  Do you know what god priming is?  If you had journal access you could look at that first article and find a numbr of supporting studies.   Since pretty much all research studies begin with a literature review.   Well that and the fact that said study was actually 3 studies that all came to the same conclusion.

D) Again... this seems to be pure ignorance to social sciences.  Social sciences collect data and then infer results.  Because you can't measure motivations and emotions like you can say, gravity.

E)  Again, do you or do you not believe in moral relatvism?  If you do.  Specific examples that have more or less always held consistant as moral are the only things you can measure to judge morality.

If you have two groups except one group thinks it's morally right to drink cofee, and the other thinks it's morally incorrect to drink coffee.... no comparison can be made on morallity based on drinking coffee.  This goes all the way up to crazy things like always forcing women to cover their heads.  If you believe in moral relatvism... you can't use those things for comparison.

 

It's clearly obvious that your the one who doesn't know anything about research.  Nor apparently moral relatvism.   Which is odd... being a moral absolutist who is an atheist honestly just makes you a pretty illogical atheist..

It's like being an atheist and believing in modal realism.

Your just giving up one "fantasy" for another.