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End of atheism?

Mike182

Mike182

Flaming Queer
Jerrell said:
It's getting now to where people are getting too smart to deny God Exists.
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many of the people who deny God's existence are more inteligent than me, what are you saying? that only people who lack the ability to think deny God's existence?
 
Ody

Ody

Well-Known Member
Jerrell said:
It's getting now to where people are getting too smart to deny God Exists.
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:biglaugh: I would truely like you to back up this comment...
 
Fluffy

Fluffy

A fool
in many threads i have refused to use or accept statistical evidence becuase, frankly, it is a pathetic form of evidence.

statistics are derived from samples, samples are selected - that statistics is true for that sample, yes, but to generalise it to the rest of the populations makes the statistic invalid and useless - i do not accept or use statistics.
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Sampling is neither inaccurate nor invalid nor useless. It is used by manufacturers on a daily business and they rely on it being the exact opposite in order to 1) not break the law by selling poor goods and 2) save them a lot of money in the process. For example, if I sold batteries and wanted to see whether my "8 hour guarantee" was true, it would be impossible for me to test the entire population because it would make my batteries useless. The only way is to take a sample and then generalise from that sample. The maths is complicated and I can go into it but for now I shall merely assure you that sampling and statistics are very accurate and it is very unfortunate that common knowledge in the form of "lies, damn lies and statistics" skew many people's views on this.

There are plenty of different methods which can be used to create a sample which has the percentage likelihood of being accurate of whatever you like, whether that be 50% or 99%. The only mistake comes when somebody decides to make the claim that statistics has "proven" an idea, something which I believe to be a fallacy. Statistics are very useful at showing how likely something is to be true, however. Metaphysical proof may not be the realm of statistics but everything beneath that very high requirement certainly is and it would be a mistake to disregard that.
 
Mike182

Mike182

Flaming Queer
Fluffy said:
Sampling is neither inaccurate nor invalid nor useless. It is used by manufacturers on a daily business and they rely on it being the exact opposite in order to 1) not break the law by selling poor goods and 2) save them a lot of money in the process. For example, if I sold batteries and wanted to see whether my "8 hour guarantee" was true, it would be impossible for me to test the entire population because it would make my batteries useless. The only way is to take a sample and then generalise from that sample. The maths is complicated and I can go into it but for now I shall merely assure you that sampling and statistics are very accurate and it is very unfortunate that common knowledge in the form of "lies, damn lies and statistics" skew many people's views on this.
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but this is for batteries, if they are made in exactly the same way, chances are they will all act the same. sample testing is good here, yes, but sampling humanity is different.
 
T

Tony

Member
~Lord Roghen~ said:
athiesm is dropping very quickly, statistics show it dropped from 20% to 16% worldwide. its kind of weird. most atheists have been converting to islam, satanism, christianity, or neopagan faiths aparently. i wonder what its gna be like in 10 years
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I'm not sure about your statistics.

I've seen statistics that people become less and less religious.

It's inevitable. People become more educated tspecially with development of the Internet. More and more people see that science makes more sense, so they stop believing in fantasies.

It's just a matter of time when all the religions will be considered myths like, for example, ancient Greek myths.
 
Booko

Booko

Deviled Hen
Fluffy said:
There are plenty of different methods which can be used to create a sample which has the percentage likelihood of being accurate of whatever you like, whether that be 50% or 99%. The only mistake comes when somebody decides to make the claim that statistics has "proven" an idea, something which I believe to be a fallacy. Statistics are very useful at showing how likely something is to be true, however. Metaphysical proof may not be the realm of statistics but everything beneath that very high requirement certainly is and it would be a mistake to disregard that.
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It would also be a mistake to ignore the great diversity in beliefs, which most studies I've seen do. Like assuming you can "check only one" -- that's an idea that would boggle the mind of many Asians. And how do you find out what religions people adhere to globally speaking? Do we really have the facility to do valid statistical sampling in countries with little technology, or do we just work sometimes on assumptions?

I take stats about religious adherence with a dose of skepticism. They're not completely off, but one wonders what the "footnotes" say in the original studies. They can be quite cautionary, but rarely get repeated when this stuff is picked up and spread around.
 
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