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"I do not wish to flame you, but it does seem to me that you have not studied this subject, but are instead arguing from your gut feeling, plus some revulsion over what this particular study shows. If I may ask, what is your mathematical background?"
Oh, so what I say is dismissed because my mathematics don't go beyond high school? I'm also saying that the sampling is flawed because how many different cities and regions with different customs and beliefs are there? Many more than 2000. It's a big country.
I'm arguing with my gut and not my brain? You're not worth discussing this with if you won't accept that somebody can think differently than you without being wrong.
I wish I could meet you, maybe somehow show you that not all Christians are holier-than-thou jerks.
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Well, if you're not arguing from gut feeling, why don't you post some math that supports your point, as I did? How else are you going to convince me that you're right? And if your mathematics indeed doesn't go beyond high school, then how do you know that you're right, in the first place?
I can accept you thinking differently on, let's say, the merits of Shakespeare; but in mathematics, there actually is such a thing as a correct answer. You are welcome to show that I made a mistake in arriving at my conclusion. Until you do so, I am indeed going to have to dismiss your argument. If you want respect for your argument, make one based in math, not handwaving.
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quote:I once heard "the greatest single cause of atheisism is Christians... who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, and then walk out of the door and deny him by their lifestyle."
It seems to me that the greatest single cause of atheism is no dang evidence for theism.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I will let you speak for yourself. I might even let you speak for your family. When you begin speaking for a church of 300 people, I'm having to wonder where you get your information. I asked this question of Nick also, and got no answer: How do you know that those people you claim to speak for don't distrust atheists? Is this a topic that often comes up in conversation, between hymns perhaps?
Also, you don't seem to understand the fundamental point about representative samples: You're already represented. Someone in that study spoke for you, saying "No, I don't distrust atheists in particular". But you are in the minority.
You know I cant speak for everyone in my church, but I do know the people very well. I spend much of my time with these people and i have listened to their views on the world. I have even talked with some of them about atheists, and none of them hated them.
One question I have about the study.... Does it say the sample was taken out of 2000 Christians, or just people in general? I don't remember. Also were they Catholics, Mormans, different Protestant groups, Cult groups that are still "Christians" because they mention Christ in their religion, our some other sect of the faith?
Also think about who answers these kinds of studies. In my intro to Stats class we talked about a Journalist that reported that 78 percent of parents said they wished they didnt have their child. Now who do you think took the time to mail a letter to the paper in responce to the question? The people that were not happy. These stats did not give a good representation of the majority of parents.
Just like how you don't write a letter to the resturant if you enjoyed your dinner. You only take the time to write back if the service was bad and the food was cold. If I got a phone call about if I distrusted atheist i would hang up, because the whole study would sound stupid to me.
Those are some things to think about.
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quote:I'm also saying that the sampling is flawed because how many different cities and regions with different customs and beliefs are there? Many more than 2000. It's a big country.
That's why you don't go out on a street in a single city and ask the first 2000 people you meet. There's a whole science to getting a really random sample from all over the country. And while there are more than 2000 people in it, there are not more than 2000 categories of people for something fairly simple like this. You can just split the data say eight ways: {Christian/Other}x{Coast/Midwest}x{Male/Female}.
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KoM, you obviously have it in against Christianity, for this is not the only thread you seem to want to attack the belief.
My argument isn't so much mathematics as it is logic. You still haven't addressed the fact that there are more areas in the country than there are poll participants. That doesn't have anything to do with your mathematical proof.
Is it really necessary to be so condescending?
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quote:Originally posted by Dog Walker: Mighty Cow, I sorry the Christians in your life did not show you God's love. I wish I could meet you and try to change your feelings toward what Christians are.
Don't worry. It wasn't the bad Christians who lead me away. I realize that there are some awesome Christians, but I started to look around, and realized that there are just as many awesome non-Christians. Once I realized that Christians didn't have any corner on the morality market, it helped me be able to step back and realize that I was believing something that didn't make any sense to me, and it didn't even offer me any benefit.
I'm willing to accept that people might have a good reason to believe something illogical if it offers them a concrete benefit. If there isn't any benefit which can't be found elsewhere, I figured I'd rather believe things which made more sense.
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Not really... 1. Christian 2. Other beliefs 3. Heterosexual Male 4. Heterosexual Female 5. Homosexual Male 6. Homosexual Female 7. Rural residents 8. Urban residents 9. West Coast 10. East Coast 11. Midwest
I could keep going...
And by the way, you can't say that say Orange County will be similar to San Francisco. They're both on the west coast, but drastically different politically and morally. That's just one of many differences in your so called "eight-way data split".
It seems that I'm not the only one arguing from my gut. You seem to detest religion from what I've seen on other threads. Is it your personal mission to do this?
Random doesn't mean it's infallible in terms of representative sampling. If you don't have a large enough polling, you won't get accurate results.
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quote:Originally posted by Nick: My argument isn't so much mathematics as it is logic. You still haven't addressed the fact that there are more areas in the country than there are poll participants. That doesn't have anything to do with your mathematical proof.
There are exactly 2000 areas in the country, for a given size of area. For a different size, there is only one area. You need to show that it is your size that matters. Once again I direct you to the poll results. How do they predict election outcomes, if representative sampling doesn't work?
quote:Also think about who answers these kinds of studies. In my intro to Stats class we talked about a Journalist that reported that 78 percent of parents said they wished they didnt have their child. Now who do you think took the time to mail a letter to the paper in responce to the question? The people that were not happy. These stats did not give a good representation of the majority of parents.
This exact reason is why major sociology studies are not done by mail. Let me point out to you the part of the paper that discusses this very objection; incidentally, you really ought to read the study we're quarreling about, permit me to link you.
quote: The core data for this article are drawn from the telephone survey we designed and fielded through the Wisconsin Survey Center. Households were randomly selected, then respondents were randomly chosen within households. The survey, on average, took slightly more than 30 minutes to complete. Additionally,African Americans and Hispanics were over-sampled to provide complete data on these populations; to facilitate this over-sampling, the survey could also be conducted in Spanish if the respondent preferred. Our response rate, using a calculation that includes only known households, is 36 percent.
quote:To investigate non-response bias in our sample, we checked many of our variables against the same measures in two surveys known to be of high quality, the General Social Surveys (GSS) and the much larger Current Population Survey (CPS). Our data are quite closely aligned with both.
In other words, they thought of that and took steps to deal with it.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I'm done. You can think you're right and I'm an idiot who isn't as "smart" as you. This is going nowhere. We can go back and forth all day and night. I've invested enough of my time in this discussion with you, and frankly, you haven't even come close to convincing me. It seems you're more interested in "I'm right and you're wrong, you don't know enough math to keep up with me!" You can respond to this if it makes you feel better, I just will not be reading it.
Don't worry. It wasn't the bad Christians who lead me away. I realize that there are some awesome Christians, but I started to look around, and realized that there are just as many awesome non-Christians. Once I realized that Christians didn't have any corner on the morality market, it helped me be able to step back and realize that I was believing something that didn't make any sense to me, and it didn't even offer me any benefit.
I'm willing to accept that people might have a good reason to believe something illogical if it offers them a concrete benefit. If there isn't any benefit which can't be found elsewhere, I figured I'd rather believe things which made more sense. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Mighty Cow you seem like a good person. Your not flaunting your beliefs and it seems like your just trying to figure things out, and I respect that.
I not ganna get into why I believe what I believe on an online forum. I just want to say that their was a time in my life right after I moved (for the 6th time in 10 years) where I was really getting messed with. I hated the people in my new school, my football coaches, myself, and even my God(who i was trying to deny at the time).
It was right at the time I was getting ready to do something very stupid that God become so real to me. I began to feel loved. I found joy even when people were messing with me EVERY day. I began to turn back towards God and ever sense I have had a great peace I cant describe.
I started reading the bible, I mean really reading the bible and I saw how truely great God is. It gave me advise on how to handle practicle things in my life that i was having problems with. I was able to forgive those that hurt me and now can show love to everyone. Its amazing how great life is when you love everyone no matter what they do.
Oh, by the way, I moved out of that school and into a new one. Here I was runner up for homecoming prince, I have a ton of friends, and have great guys for coaches.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Jun 2005
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And by the way, you can't say that say Orange County will be similar to San Francisco. They're both on the west coast, but drastically different politically and morally. That's just one of many differences in your so called "eight-way data split".
It seems that I'm not the only one arguing from my gut. You seem to detest religion from what I've seen on other threads. Is it your personal mission to do this?
This isn't even about religion, it's about the mathematics of representative sampling. You seem to have missed my point: You need to show why your particular way of splitting the country is the correct one. As for Orange County, consider this: Either Orange County is typical of a large group, one with a lot of people in it. Maybe they aren't so similar to San Francisco, sure, but they're similar to, say, New York instead. In that case they will be represented in the study with a very high probability - maybe not someone from Orange County, precisely, but someone who answers the questions the same way. The other alternative is that Orange County is a really tiny group, totally unique. In that case, who cares if they're missed?
To consider this more simply, let us consider a study consisting only of a single yes/no question. Now there are exactly two groups of people in the United States: Those who answer yes, and those who answer no. Now suppose County A consists only of yes-answerers, while County B only contains no-answerers; the populations are the same size. Now, my sampling is such that I can only call up one person in these two counties; I flip a coin to find out which one it'll be. That coin-flip, then, determines whether I'll get a yes or a no. But over a large number of coin-flips, and I assure you that in this context 2000 is a large number, the percentage of yes responses will indeed match the percentage who actually do answer yes.
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King of Men you never answered my question about who was in the study. Do you know?? Look up 8 or 9 posts to see my question.
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I did. I linked to the study. I also quoted what they say about the selection. It was random from the whole population.
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quote: I started reading the bible, I mean really reading the bible and I saw how truely great God is. It gave me advise on how to handle practicle things in my life that i was having problems with.
Could you elaborate on this? Please provide specific examples and direct quotes if possible.
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quote: I started reading the bible, I mean really reading the bible and I saw how truely great God is. It gave me advise on how to handle practicle things in my life that i was having problems with.
Could you elaborate on this? Please provide specific examples and direct quotes if possible.
Sure. I'll give you a few of the top of my head and then I'm off to bed for the night.
On dealing with anger/ Revenge:
Mathew 5: 38 You have heard that it was said, "Eye for Eye, and tooth for tooth" But I tell you Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also.
This helped me during my times i was being messed with. Often times I would fight back but that only made things worse. As I started "turning the other cheek" I noticed people layed off and respected me a little more.
About Judging others
Mat 7:1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged.... Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
I was thinking I was all "high and mighty" until I read this. Now I try not to judge people because I got enough stuff on my own. I also understood why some people had problems with me. They were seeing the crap in my own life, but i was telling them all the wrong things they were doing. This has helped me make more, and better friends.
Lust/respect for women
You have heard that it was said, "Do not commit adultery" But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart.
I am 17 and as you could guess lust can be a problem. After reading this verse I now have a greater respect for all women. I try to respect them even when some of them don't respect themselves.
Telling the Truth
Matt 5: 37 Simplt let your "Yes" be "Yes" and your "No" be No".
Telling the truth is such a great thing. How many problems go away when you just start to be honest.
There is advise for parenting, how to be a good kid, and how to respect those in athority over you. I think its in Galatians or Ephesians, I'm not sure.
Genesus 38-49
These chapters go into the life of Joseph. Joseph shows me what true integrity is. He was a great man in times of pain, troubles and heart-ache, as well as in times of joy, power, and happyness. I cant get into it all because it is so long.
1 and 2 Sam. plus Psalms (The life of King David).
David shows me that we are all ganna make mistakes but it is our love for God and our love for others that matters. We need to try to become the best we can be, but God will still forgive us when we fall.
The Life of Jesus
Jesus hung with everyone. He cared more about people than he did about power or fame. He loved us so much he died for us. He died even though he knew not everyone would follow him. He knew some would disrespect and mock him, but he died all the same.
I try to live a life that puts others first, not caring what type of people they are. Its amazing, the second I stopped trying to be popular and cool, and started being nice to everyone, I became "popular" (what ever that means). I still don't get high and wasted every weekend and am not "banging any chicks" but I am not a loser.
I am no great Pastor or a very learned Christian, so this is the best I can think of right now. I wish i had more of the top of my head but I don't right now. I also don't feel like looking a bunch up so this is it. I hope this is an ok responce.
Ohhh.... I forgot verses that show why I feel God is so great. Some is with the life of Christ but their is so much more. I cant get into right now but if you want more on that I might say something after school and before work tommorrow.
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There many philosophies that advocate the same virtuous behaviors. Was the Bible just the first place you looked for this sort of advice, or did you select it over other sources for a particular reason?
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There seems to be a fundamental disconnect, there. If I said "The Invisible Pink Unicorn says you should turn the other cheek", and in fact I do say that, would the success of your strategy be proof of the IPU's (bbhh) existence?
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quote:Originally posted by Dog Walker: Mighty Cow you seem like a good person. Your not flaunting your beliefs and it seems like your just trying to figure things out, and I respect that.
Thanks. I try to be a good person, even though I don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible or the existence of a supernatural creator. I like to think I can be a good person, have a great life, be happy, forgive people, and love others even without organized religion.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: There seems to be a fundamental disconnect, there. If I said "The Invisible Pink Unicorn says you should turn the other cheek", and in fact I do say that, would the success of your strategy be proof of the IPU's (bbhh) existence?
I was not trying to prove my faith with those verses. I was merly answering the question about what practicle advise I have fond in the bible. I am not trying to prove my God's existence by the fact that the bible has praticle advise that can help.
Nothing about that post was saying God is real because it works. That throws out your whole deal with the "Invisble Pink Unicorn".
I'm not trying to start a big debate on if God is real or not with you. I've found out debates don't work so much when both sides will not sway from their original postion. The only result is two angery sides and no progress.
King of Men, you do not remind me much of the other atheist I have come in contact with. None of them WANTED people to hate them, or distrust them as it seems you do. I don't hate atheists, I dont distrust people souly on the fact that they are atheist, and I wont hate you, even if you like to compare my God with Unicorns.
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I'd imagine KoM chose unicorns specifically because there are exactly as many verifiable unicorn sightings as there are god sightings.
Of course, as a Christian (or any sort of religious person, really), that's something you may as well learn to deal with. He won't be the last person to make that comparison.
If it makes you feel any better, I don't think many of the Christians on this board think that it's an accident that there's no scientific way to prove god's existence.
After all, it doesn't take much faith to believe in a god you can touch, taste, see, hear, or smell.
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It's worth pointing out, though, that only in the last couple of hundred years has this become enshrined in doctrine. Back in the day, people believed what they were told and saw nothing wrong in it. It's only because of the huge success of science that religion is now forced to make an actual virtue of unsupported faith.
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quote:Originally posted by Nick: KoM, you obviously have it in against Christianity, for this is not the only thread you seem to want to attack the belief.
My argument isn't so much mathematics as it is logic. You still haven't addressed the fact that there are more areas in the country than there are poll participants. That doesn't have anything to do with your mathematical proof.
Is it really necessary to be so condescending?
I think you're missing KoM's point. Although I'll agree that his manner is quite abrasive, probably moreso than it needs to be, he is not actually presenting an argument from authority ("your credentials suck, therefore you are wrong"), which you seem to think he is.
The problem is that, if you never took any classes on statistics (or at least made some effort to learn the theory and methodology behind modern polling), then you will be fundamentally incapable of understanding what gives a study like the UoM one cited in this thread its power. It is completely irrelevant how many "areas of the country" there are, because the sample is selected randomly from people anywhere in the country. On average, all of the viewpoints of interest will be represented in the resulting data, in numbers proportional to what you would find if you could actually poll every single person in the population.
Hoo boy. I am not a statistician by any possible definition of the word, but let me see if I can explain this...
Think of it this way. Let's say you have a country of 100 people, and you're trying to predict the result of a presidential election with two possible candidates. If you ask ten people out of the hundred, selected randomly (and this is key), who they plan to vote for, you will get a ratio very close to what you would get if you actually asked all 100 people. You don't need to actually ask all 100 people, because your random sample already accurately reflects what all 100 people are thinking. Even if this hypothetical country is split up into states of, say, 5-30 people, with vastly different political preferences between states, your results will be approximately the same every single time, as long as you are careful to randomize your sampling. There will inevitably be some minor variation between polls, but all other things being equal, they will always be surprisingly close.
The study cited in this thread works on the same general principle, although at a more complex level, obviously. Your criticism is irrelevant because the simple act of choosing a random sample of the population renders regional differences within the population moot.
As for your anecdotal example ("I don't know anyone who distrusts atheists"), while I have no doubt that you're telling the truth, and that your friends and family are in fact very open-minded Christians who bear no particular grudge against atheists, you cannot extrapolate from your personal experiences to the greater population because they do not constitute a random sample! There are many reasons why, but let me describe one: your sample only contains people who you have interacted with personally. Since you have no particular grudge against atheists, it is likely that the Christians with whom you primarily associate are of like mind. If the Westboro Baptist Church, to use an extreme example, decided to picket your school, I doubt you would go hang out with them. You would recognize them as a bunch of loud, bigoted assholes, and rightly so. Yet they are still American citizens (much as we wish they would go away), and a truly random sample would take that into account.
Now, returning to the university study... out of those 2000 people in their sample, is it likely that one of them was actually an active member of the WBC? Probably not, because there are so few of them. But that's fine! There are so few members of WBC that, for all intents and purposes, they are irrelevant to the study of the American population as presented in that report. And if one manages to sneak in, well, that will very slightly bias the study in one direction, but since that person is just one out of 2000, his or her effect will still be almost nonexistant. That's why when results like this are reported, they are always reported with a margin of error, which effectively states: "given a random sample of <this size>, out of a total population of <this size>, we can only state our results with an accuracy within <this range>." I haven't read the actual paper in question, but with a sample size of 2000, I would be shocked if the margin of error was more than +/-3%.
Hope that made some semblence of sense. And if there's anyone out there who has taken statistics more recently than four years ago (or who has taken more than rudimentary intro stat ), feel free to elaborate and/or make corrections to my description as necessary. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I've calculated standard deviations and such. And I happen to agree with Nick. Not, perhaps, for the reasons he stated. But because there really is no such thing as a sufficiently random sample with these sorts of studies. Too many sampling biases are almost certain to be present, biases in how the questions are phrased are absolutely guaranteed to be present, etc.
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quote:My argument isn't so much mathematics as it is logic.
This just goes to show how little math you know...
It is true that a study with a sample size of 2000 cannot 100% accurately predict the status of a population of more than 200M. It can only have 100% confidence for those studied. However, when you consider that the 2000 person sample was pretty much randomly chosen (as is the case in all valid surveys), the odds of the study drastically misrepresenting the truth get very small. Small enough that the burden of proof shifts to you, Nick, to show that the study's results are misleading.
You cannot refute the study with anecdotal evidence, especially with fewer than 2000 examples.
There are two ways to properly dismantle such a study. The first is to conduct a study that is at least as comprehensive, but gets the opposite results. This may be possible, but such a study would be susceptible to a large observer bias.
The other way is to show that the study had improper methodology or systemic errors. This could demonstrate that the study is inconclusive, but it cannot show that the study is wrong.
(Note that I don't expect Nick to respond. I am posting this simply because I have too much appreciation for math to idly let it be abused like this. We could all use a better understanding of statistical methods. And more respect for experienced researchers.)
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quote:I once heard "the greatest single cause of atheisism is Christians... who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, and then walk out of the door and deny him by their lifestyle."
I used to own that DC Talk album too (I may even still own it, but who knows where it is). As an atheist myself, these days, I can tell you that man's behavior has nothing to do with my newfound atheism. It has everything to do with "God's" behavior.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: I've calculated standard deviations and such. And I happen to agree with Nick. Not, perhaps, for the reasons he stated. But because there really is no such thing as a sufficiently random sample with these sorts of studies. Too many sampling biases are almost certain to be present, biases in how the questions are phrased are absolutely guaranteed to be present, etc.
Yeah, sampling bias is something I didn't want to get into too much, since it's a huge can of worms and I wanted to make sure I got the basic concepts right. However, as someone noted earlier, the researchers can and did take measures to minimize the effects of known confounding factors. There's obviously only so much they can do, since they can't do anything about unknown factors, but I think they've been reasonably scientific about their work. YMMV.
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quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: I think they've been reasonably scientific about their work.
I don't disagree . . . to the extent that is possible with this sort of study. I happen to think studies like this are not terribly worthwhile, for exactly the types of reasons I outlined. Doesn't mean I don't read such studies, but it does mean I take them with an exceedingly large grain of salt.
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), feel free to elaborate and/or make corrections to my description as necessary. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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And I happen to agree with Nick. Not, perhaps, for the reasons he stated. But because there really is no such thing as a sufficiently random sample with these sorts of studies. Too many sampling biases are almost certain to be present, biases in how the questions are phrased are absolutely guaranteed to be present, etc.
