The Left frequently defines ‘social justice’ differently than Judeo-Christian values do. For most on the Left, ‘social justice’ means social equality and social fairness. It is not fair that some people have more than others. This is why the Left believes that courts should be far more than umpires when adjudicating justice: they should be promoting fairness and equality. The other difference…is that leftist ideologies are so preoccupied with ‘social justice’ that they generally ignore personal character development. Judeo-Christian values believe the road to a just society is paved by individual character development; the Left believes it is paved with action on a macro level. That is one reason the Left is far more interested than the Right, i.e., religious Jews and Christians and secular conservatives, in passing laws, whether through legislation or through the actions of judges. That is how the Left believes you make a better society. There is, incidentally, a second reason the Left passes so many laws: As the Left breaks down the self-discipline of Judeo-Christian religions, more and more laws are needed simply to keep people from devouring each other.
Note 48: Correlation is not causation. In this case, I don’t think there is even correlation. I read the article.
The data were not presented on an individual basis. The “study” did not compare the religious activity of individual persons with the homicide, morality, STD infection, etc. rates of those same persons. Rather, it compared the aggregate, average rates of religious activity of entire nations with the various, aggregate dysfunction rates of those nations. It then concluded that religious practicies, on a national average, were the entire cause of the level of dysfunction seen in each nation — again at a national average — neglecting any other factors.
To put it in technical terms: what a crock.
I noticed that too. I wonder if sociology has been corrupted by secular political correctness in the same way the humanities has.
Note 51: Augie states: “Correlation is not causation”. I’ve stated this over and over again, usually in reference to some other “study” put out by the Heritage Foundation or the Family Research Council. This relates to that “bias” thing, yes? Unfortunately, no one here questions the validity of the results of those studies. They’re bought hook, line and sinker.
Again, if I’m trying to underline anything here, it’s that we need to make an effort to discern truth in everything, not just those things who present a view unlike our own. I’m not seeing that. Both sides eat up studies that confirm our own biases and tear up everything that does not.
Personally, I have little faith in “surveys” and “studies” and “statistical analysis”. They rarely reflect a truth that the data implies.
James, you are essentially arguing that sociology has no value whatsoever. This is not correct (and why I recommended waiting the the study Jim cited until other sociologists can review it). Sociology can be of great value if responsibly done.
RE Note #52. Sociology began the corruption of the humanities in many ways. From Margaret Mead on down, the subjective social beliefs of the particular sociologist pre-determine the outcome of any particular study. Except for the statisical part, sociology in anything but an exact science, in fact it is not a science at all. Statistics always have to be interpreted and one’s interpretation is always dependent on one’s worldview and other assumptions.
Getting people to dialog about assumptions is darned near impossible. Look at the difficulty we have on this blog on all sorts of issues from Darwinism, to just war, to euthanasia. Both sides tend to say, “The facts prove my thesis”. The facts prove nothing. At best they are like Legos. In the first place, one never has all the relevant facts, in the second place the definition of what is relevant and significant is always colored by one’s assumptions. The selection of the relevant facts used is further governed by one’s assumptions and the desired outcome, etc., etc., etc. As far back as the 1960’s there were studies done that showed that even in carefully designed, double blind research studies, experimental bias has a observable and significant effect on the outcome of the experiment.
Sociology is just a bunch of assumptions lumped together and then applied to observed situations. More often than not, sociology has been used as a tool of social change in the direction of the non-Christian.
In this thread, those who are sceptical of faith and its ability to transform and even skeptical of the unchanging nature of God are on one side of the dialog while those of us who know differently are on the other side.
We worry and fret about all that is contingent to that basic belief and willingness to be obedient to God’s will and submit to His love, giving little direct consideration to that fundamental question.
The fundamental reality of the Orthodox Christian Church is that if one follows the teachings of the Church, one is transformed and transfigured much as Jesus Himself was on Mt. Tabor. That is the nature of salvation. The only way one can fully experience such transformation is within the community of the Church, because that is the vehicle God chooses to use. Corporate transformation is built upon the individual transformation which in turn strengthens each individual within the community–the concept of synergy.
The Church has also always recognized that no matter how much one talks about the living reality of the Church, those who have not experienced it or refuse to experience it with an open heart and mind, will never understand it. No matter how many facts one can show, the good plowed earth is not there to receive the truth. That is why little catechesis was done in the early Church until after Baptism and Christmation.
Every intellectual discipline that I am aware of in this day and age is focused on the task of proving the autonomy of man and nature. That is a lie. Until one begins to reason from a foundation of radical dependency on a loving creator God, both wholly unknowable, yet intimately involved with us at the core of our being, nothing much of lasting value will be accomplished, certainly nothing will change except for the worse.
Press Distortion and Measurable Quantities
PRESS DISTORTION
The Press very frequently misreports the results of legitimate academic studies. Except for a few quality publications like Scientific American or the like, most members of the Press have very little background in science. Journalism majors tend to avoid mathematics and science and take the minimum required to graduate, this doesn’t stop them from reporting from those same fields. The second distorting factor, is that the Press is looking for a sensationalistic angle for their story. It is a miracle that any decent science reporting gets done.
I think the Internet provides a great deal of hope for the future since the Press can now simply link to the original study and readers can look at the underlying source data.
HOW DO YOU MEASURE “RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE” AND “SUCCESS” OF A SOCIETY
There do exist solid criteria for designing research protocols. The first criteria is that the entities under study must be capable of measurement. A good example would be a study trying to correlate the consumption of vegetables and weight loss. Given enough control, test subjects could report the amount of vegetables they act over a given time period, total food consumed, total exercise performed, as well as changes in their weight. These are clear cut quantities that can be measured. The study we have discussed attempts to correlate religious influence and the success of the society as a whole. I question whether something as subjective and amorphous as religious influence can be measured in any but an arbitrary way. The concepts involved are too vague. What qualifies as “religion?” Do we include Scientologists and those folks who are trying to fly to Mars? Does the influence of one religion cancel out the influence of another religion. Are people honestly reporting their religious status? Even defining a successful society is open to debate. What is a fair measure of success of a society? GNP? Infant mortality? Percentage of the population who complete high school? I could come up with any number of indicators that could be used to measure success.
Given the very broad and difficult to define factors which the study alleges attempts to correlate, I don’t think it has much true scientifica value.
Missourian wrote, “As a personal matter, or perhaps as a pastoral matter, I think that is is fine to point unwed parents to the love and foregivness of God. The population that I am talking about hasn’t been brought to Church by their parents and they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. They don’t think they need forgiveness. They aren’t despondent.Unwed parenthood IS THE NORM and they would tell you that you had no right to criticize them.”
That is just not true. My 17 year old niece gave birth to her bastard daughter in April of this year. My brother is a regular church goer at a conservative Evangelical church. His daughter was raised in church, and her 15 year old boyfriend that impregnated her also attended the same church. They knew all about what was right and what was wrong. But, they did this anyway.
What shocked the rest of the family, was how my brother (a very successful software developer) and his wife reacted. They positively embraced this whole mess. They didn’t want to ‘burden’ my neice, so they treated the entire affair as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. They even sponsored a baby shower.
My wife and I did what we could to shield our three-year old from this whole mess. He did us a big favor and just assumed that my brother was the father and my sister-in-law was the mother. He did this on his own, assuming that since my niece still looks like a child to him that she is just the sister. We have done nothing to disabuse him of this notion.
My niece has evidenced no regrets, no second thoughts, no remorse. There was no need. Her parents embraced her, and the school system has bent over backwards to facilitate this situation. My brother has even allowed her now 16 year old boyfriend to move in with them to be near the baby. For insurance reasons, they don’t want them to get married, but the rest of the family assumes that another baby will be on the way any time now.
So much for the power of God’s grace acted out in the typical fundamentalist family.
This whole situation is not happening in the ghetto only. It is not just among the ‘poor’ or the ‘lower class.’ In fact, it is a middle class plague as well.
It isn’t just the unchurched either. It is in the churches also, especially the Evangelical churches who preach cheap redemption and easy forgiveness.
I despise my brother’s attitude to this. It transcends mercy and becomes an embrace of sin. My niece is not sorry. She is defiant. My parents were extremely hurt by this, but she and my brother take no notice of the their pain and embarrassment.
I wish there were a higher societal cost to unwed motherhood. May be then little middle class white girls would think twice. As it stands, they don’t.
Fr. Hans writes: “A common mistake layman make with sociological data is assuming correlation equals causality. It doesn’t. Sociology cannot prove causality, it can only indicate a high degree of correlation that suggests that one thing might cause another but does not actually prove it. This is an important distinction.”
This is a distinction that is also made in the study: “Regression analyses were not executed because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions.”
Fr. Hans: “The problem with the study you cite is the broad and sweeping nature of its conclusions. I know of no study that would dare to marshal the authority and credibility of the discipline to assert conclusions about the very complex relationship between between beliefs (often unquantifiable but nevertheless real), and cultural dynamics (correlation vs. causality is crucial here) in the way this study has.”
The study is only an initial test of the thesis that societal religiosity has a negative correlation with various social problems. Based on the study results — rather dramatic results at that — the thesis fails that test.
Fr. Hans: “Wait a few months until other sociologists have examined the data and structure of this study.”
This is the hope of the researchers: “It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject.”
Augie writes: “The data were not presented on an individual basis. The ‘study’ did not compare the religious activity of individual persons with the homicide, morality, STD infection, etc. rates of those same persons. Rather, it compared the aggregate, average rates of religious activity of entire nations with the various, aggregate dysfunction rates of those nations.”
You’re probably talking about a matched-pairs study, which would be impossible to do in this case. This was an initial study taking a very large look at a large issue.
Michael writes: “Sociology is just a bunch of assumptions lumped together and then applied to observed situations.”
At this point, the study in question does not even rise to the level of sociology. The study does not present any theoretical explanation of the correlation; it merely presents the correlation.
Michael: “In this thread, those who are sceptical of faith and its ability to transform and even skeptical of the unchanging nature of God are on one side of the dialog while those of us who know differently are on the other side.”
That personal religious belief can transform an individual’s life is without doubt. The issue under discussion is the effect of societal religiosity on certain other social variables.
The idea that religion, in particular conservative Christianity, is the best way to minimize certain social problems is a widely-repeated piece of folk wisdom that has, as far as I know, never been empirically demonstrated. The study under discussion is an initial step toward answering that question.
My gut feeling is that the issue is very complex, and that conservative religion as a separate factor does not have all that much influence on the social ills in question. As many have pointed out, the Red states tend to have more severe social problems than the Blue states. Were religious belief the primary determinant of social problems, we would expect the opposite result. But when we compare Red vs. Blue, or the U.S. against other developed countries, the more religious entities also have more social problems.
I would not be surprised if the direction of causation ran the other way. In other words, it may be that social problems cause an increase in the religious impuluse of a modern society. In other words, perhaps religiosity is not a cure for social problems, but a sign of them.
In any case, the assertion that religion is the cure for social problems is at this point not supported by any data of which I’m aware. Being widely believed does not make it true.
Come on Jim. These studies, while conveniently building in fail-safes that are designed to deflect the criticisms they inevitably receive, are still part of a larger discourse that attempts to sway cultural values in one way or another. Look how you presented it for example. Contextually you introduced the study as conclusive, but once the methodology is questioned you respond that the study has no real meaning after all.
Knowledge and data are two different things. Knowledge is contextual; it requires a narrative. Sociology is data, and apart from a larger narrative it remains functionally meaningless and malleable. So when you write “In any case, the assertion that religion is the cure for social problems is at this point not supported by any data of which I’m aware,” you make the same mistake again, that is, looking for causality in an area where causality cannot be proved, albeit from the other direction.
Try literature or history instead. Knowledge reposes there.
Fr. Hans writes: “Contextually you introduced the study as conclusive, but once the methodology is questioned you respond that the study has no real meaning after all.”
If you review the post you’ll find that I presented the study in terms of the reported correlation. I think many people associate correlation with causation, which of course is not the case.
But that’s not to say that the study is meaningless. It shows that the facts may not jibe with the accepted wisdom. I agree with the authors that what the study shows is that more research is necessary. In both the social and natural sciences causation is something that is demonstrated over time through the convergence of the results of a number of studies. It would be rare that one study alone would suffice.
Fr. Hans: “So when you write ‘In any case, the assertion that religion is the cure for social problems is at this point not supported by any data of which I’m aware,’ you make the same mistake again, that is, looking for causality in an area where causality cannot be proved, albeit from the other direction.”
But that’s what the initial data show, right? Had the data shown otherwise I would have said that the existing data support the idea that religion reduces various social problems. But we don’t see that. In other words, our beliefs on the topic should be informed by the data, inasmuch as we have data. I am not aware of any methodological problems with this study, and the authors do not assert that there is a causal relationship. Instead, they call for more research, which is the right thing to do.