Atheists more compassionate than believers, study finds

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by KilljoyKlown, May 5, 2012.

  1. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    All I can say is I didn't need an article to tell me this.

     
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  3. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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  5. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Sure didn't. This completely flies in the face of the (mostly Christian) claim that there is morality without God.

    That's great stuff. I really wish that old saying would die already. It has never been true, and in this age of constant warfare it borders on the insulting.
     
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  7. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I find it insulting when they knock on my door and then waste my time trying to make a convert. These days I don't give them a chance to waste my time. I used to think I had a duty to argue my position, but then at that time I was willing to have a conversation with a drunk. In neither case is the effort worth it.

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  8. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

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    Loved it KilljoyKlown...also..I"m Back to SciForums.
     
  9. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Welcome back then. Have you been slumming on other forums or what?

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  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Without looking into what the study-makers conceive of as "compassion," "generosity," "morality," it is not possible to come to any conclusions.

    Religious people probably have different ideas of compassion than non-religous people.
     
  11. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I found the following link in the OP article that offers more Info on how the determinations were made.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4724838...e-motivated-compassion-faithful/#.T6YHQcWhl_B
     
  12. elte Valued Senior Member

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    I was just thinking about uncharitable behavior of a religious neighbor. I wonder if the feeling, maybe even unconscious, that God will help undo the harm to someone that the religious person acts against might sometimes be a factor in this type of thing (not unrelated to the concept, ktalgsio [kill them all let God sort it out]). Yet, I'm also wondering if "fear of God" might have restrained even potentially worse behavior in this case though.
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

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    Indeed. Look at Westboro Baptist Church as a prime example...
     
  14. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Well, they know what they mean by those terms, so it's absolutely possible to come to a conclusion. But you could find out for yourself if you wanted.

    Some might, sure. But that doesn't mean that those ideas are valid. For example, Bells brings up Westboro Baptist. They would call what they do compassionate work, because it's an attempt to "save us" from God's wrath. But no sensible person would agree with them.
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    On the other hand, much of what mainstream culture considers "compassion," is actually "idiot compassion."


    Psychologists, counselors and personal coaches make tons of money off of people who have to unlearn practicing idiot compassion and who need to fix the negative consequences thereof in their lives.
     
  16. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Could you quantify that? All your Google search provides are links to barely-intelligible ramblings by unqualified people who have a very tenuous grasp on the English language.

    What would qualify as "idiot compassion" to you? Are you saying that the compassion and generosity discussed in this study is actually "idiot" compassion and "idiot" generosity? And can you back up your claim with a relevant study, or is this just another one of your red herrings?

    I think it's more likely that these "gurus" you link to are the ones making money preaching their pseudophilosophical hokum about "idiot compassion" to gullible saps.
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Next time you help someone and you do it with the intention to make yourself feel better, consider whether that really is compassion, or whether perhaps it is something else.
     
  18. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Are you incapable of intellectual honesty?

    How about instead of deflecting the question, you answer it as it was put to you.

    And for whatever it's worth, what you just said would not count as "idiot compassion." According to the man who apparently coined the term, this concept is the desire to give people what they want, rather than what they need. This has nothing to do with being charitable so that you may feel better about yourself.

    Perhaps you should read up on this stuff before you write about it.
     
  19. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I don't believe that there's a significant difference.

    (And what's a "study" exactly? A poll in this instance? That's not exactly a scientific experiment.)

    The people who create polls can often skew their results toward desired conclusions by wording the questions artfully.

    Or maybe it's the other way around.

    If atheists are statistically more likely to be found on the political left, and if the poll questions in this instance were subtly tilted to appeal to leftish sensibilities, then it shouldn't be surprising to find a weak positive correlation between atheism and those giving conventional responses.

    We might find a similar positive correlation between religious adherence and a propensity to give conventional responses if the pollsters word their questions to subtly appeal to rightish sensibilities.

    In both cases, we still wouldn't know what happens when matters move beyond mere talk, to action.

    Right. I'm glad they recognize that
     
  20. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    In my daily life, I can't typically distinguish between religious believers and non-believers, by observing their actions in most everyday secular contexts. People display a level of compassion and empathy that's seemingly a function of their shared humanity, and has little to do with their religious adherence, if any.

    So I don't believe that atheists are more compassionate than other people. Nor do I give any credence to the opposing idea that ethics and morality are somehow dependent on religious faith. Both assertions are simply bullshit, in my opinion.

    I will say that when it comes to the small subset of people who wear their religion or irreligion on their sleeves, the religious militants and the militant atheists, I think that the atheists are often worse.

    In my personal life, some of the nastiest people that I've ever encountered, the most hostile, insulting and abusive, those most removed from any shred of empathy and compassion, have been atheists.

    Perhaps that's because, while religious and irreligious militants on all sorts have an annoying tendency to be jerks, militant atheists often display a combination of hostile chip-on-the-shoulder anger and unfounded assumptions of their own intellectual superiority that seems to be particularly toxic.

    (I guess that Islamic militants are probably the world's worst though, certainly the most dangerous to everyone else around them.)
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

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    I haven't experienced that, to be honest with you.

    If I had to count, I would personally say that the people who were the most judgemental, the meanest, jealous, insulting and abusive people who had no empathy or sympathy that I had ever met in my life were theists. Those who become and feel almost gleeful at someone else's pain or illness, who gloat that they are protected somehow or other from harm because they believe in God..

    Case in point, on this very site. We used to have a member here who was very much the theist, but she would have to have been the absolute meanest, and most hateful person I have probably ever had the misfortune of encountering in my life. She did not just lack empathy and compassion, but she gloated and celebrated the pain and suffering of others. And she was very much the Christian.

    In my own time of need, it was the atheists in my life who came to my aid, without being asked. The theists were too busy telling me that this was happening to me because I was an atheist and that if I had God in my life, I would apparently have been fine and the tone sometimes used was very much a gloating and judgemental one. Even from my own parents. My own mother, a very Catholic woman, when I was probably in one of the worst places I could have been health wise, came to me and told me that this was happening because I didn't believe. She didn't mean it to be horrible. But it is what she actually believed. And it was shocking and spectacular in a morbid way. The best line I received from a close and very Christian family member was 'I am praying for you, but you don't believe in God, so it's kind of pointless'.. That is a prevailing attitude that I have experienced. My atheist friends were just there, never a judgemental tone, they were just there.

    So I would have to disagree with you on that point.

    Personally, I think arseholes exist on both sides of the theist and atheist scale.
     
  22. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Who took this study? Belonging to a religion does not give you faith.
     
  23. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Bravo, I meet more theist assholes than atheist assholes, but that's expected given the number of each type that I meet. Like Yazata pointed out these type of polls are easy to shape to support any desired result. However, I tend to see it as atheists fighting back against the massive theist establishment, and as an atheist we still have a long way to go, and I'm very tired of theist always doing their best to give atheists a bad name and not getting a good dose of their own treatment in return.
     

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