Das Opium des Bourgeoisie

[shkrobius]

A UNL sociologist mined the data from the General Social Survey (conducted by the UoC since 1972) to correlate education and "religion" on a large nationwide sample. Here are the findings:

- Education had a strong and positive effect on religious participation. With each additional year of education, the odds of attending religious services

Comments

[eta_ta]

facts do not contradict this picture.
they just confirm that "education" - or, in truth, brainwashing - of any kind, poured on growing minds, works.
and what a person made to believe in his youth, uncritically, tends to stay with him for the rest of his life - unless. Unless life contradicts his beliefs and give him reality checks.
brainwashing with communist ideology stumbled on rocks of reality. so, it has been easier for people to analyze this failure and reject the ideology.
religion, by its nature, is unprovable - and so millions continue to believe the garbage they were fed in their sensitive years.
however, they feel insecure about it, underneath it all. that's why they lush out at atheists and proclaim eternal damnation on us.

Also, Buckner is right, when he says a lot of people go to church/sinagogue for social/networking reasons and as a force of habit. I heard that expressed by many so called believers themselves.

[shkrobius]

1. This jeremiad only tells that you cannot conceive faith to be the choice of FREE will. No offence, but I do not think you would be able to prove that

[eta_ta]

- you don't call my comment a jeremiad and I won't call your post a rant. OK

[shkrobius]

If you insist, you can call it a rant, I do not really mind, although it seems to me incorrect word usage. A jeremiad is writing "in which the author laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective," so your comment was, technically, a jeremiad. Meanwhile, to rant is "to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner," so the post was not a rant. Conveying other's opinions can't be called a rant in my book

[eta_ta]

-by these definitions my comment was definit4ely not a jeremiad: there is no lament involved (especially with regard to SOCIETY. I can care less about society). your, however was written exactly in noisy, declamatory manner. and you did not so much convey other opinions as distorted them and engaged in haughty [rhetorical] questions addressing a person unable response.

- I said nothing of the kind! I did not "agree on principle that the choice is free". It is not, as a rule. Naturally, as in all human endeavors, movements and activities there is a range of motives (which, once again is the subject of the quote you ridicule), so among others a free deliberate choosing of religion is possible. But not as a universal phenomenon.

-I am not "belittling" anything. I convey (good word, that) the reality of what i observed, myself, and many confirmations from real people that I personally know - apart from mere theoretical constructions.
As to my opinion of the religious - no, I see no reason to hide it. It is definitely, a much milder

[shkrobius]

Sorry, but Jews do not evangelize. I do not consider you as the subject for a "deeply satisfying conversion;" I am satisfied to see you out. There was bitterness in your complaint that the Jews do not consider you as one of their own. There is no reason you should be considered on a different footing from the millions before you. There will be no fight to win you over

[eta_ta]

once again, you engage in personal attack and you twist my words and you "diagnose" my ulterior motive.
you insult me, triggering a reaction then you exclaim "that's a rant". classic manipulating behavior.
switching topics. manipulating.declairing your opponent simply "bitter" for being rejected from your club of compliant idiots. that your opponent "lacks imagination" (does she really? that's a shame). hints at your opponent being Marxist (same trick leftist use by painting all their opponents racists).

every low trick in the book, every fallacy.

I am disgusted.

[shkrobius]

I can't add more to what I wrote above. You find hypothetical rationalizations starting from the universal origin of human actions in economic self-benefit (which is the cornerstone of the Marxist philosophy, and it is not a "hint", this is how it is) insulting when these are applied to you, but consider such rationalizations entirely proper (not in a hypothetical, but in the actual form) towards the others. If you protest the treatment along the lines, then perhaps you should not use such argumentation, because it opens you to precisely such argumentaton; you can't have it both ways. When you are given your own medicine (in a highly diluted form), you barrage me with complaints of being misunderstood, manipulated, your words twisted, yourself analyzed and insulted, etc. - and I am even denied the right to classify this outburst as bitter! So far, your only logical argument was calling me a deluded member in a club of compliant idiots. Whether this is true or not, it does not address the issue discussed: viz., why educated people

[eta_ta]

Enough.
Thanks for this reminder why I crossed you from my reading list.

[shkrobius]

I wish you the best.

[eta_ta]

I'm sure you do. Just another mitzvah.

Hypocrite.

[eta_ta]

and the last.

it's not "bitterness", you sweetie (as opposed to).

it's anger.

this is a typical, standard misperception/acusation so often heard from mysogynists: you are bitter! because you want to belong to us!

nope, silly. I am disgusted and angry.

[shkrobius]

BITTER adjective: feeling angry or upset because of a bad experience, especially when you think that you have been treated unfairly.
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/bitter#bitter_3

"Disgusted and angry" IS bitter. That you are/were treated unfairly has been reiterated four times. That you had bad experiences was reiterated even more times. You accuse me of the standard English usage.

[neatfires]

> Sorry, but Jews do not evangelize
Also, Jews do not murder (except in wars), do not idolize anyone other than God (aside from Rabi Nachman and the pure tzadikim), get rid of hametz on Pesach (by selling it to a goi for 1 shekel and buying it back after the holiday is over), etc. In other words, this is just the usual hypocrisy, so common in Judaism. If you know Hebrew, here's a reality check for you:
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3901700,00.html

[eta_ta]

Besides, re: your assertion that joining the golf club requires fees but joining and attending a church doesn't cost anything: That's simply not true. From regular donations after services when a church warden walks around with a box or tray soliciting money - to investment of time and personal involvement in various church activities beyond just listening to service and praying (choir, youth coordination, Sunday school, bake sales, attending to poor, etc. I have a friend, an amateur astronomer, an active Lutheran, who travels to Haiti on his vacation days, on his own buck, to participate in a "mission" of rebuilding it. Etc)

[shkrobius]

I said that switching denominations does not cost anything. The claim was that some denominations promote social climbing. If social climbing is all to it, then uneducated social climbers can take advantage of such denominations, too. Then it is not clear what it has to do with education.