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Prophecy

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#2
Magical Realist Offline
What is this piece of religious propaganda shit doing in the psychology forum?
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#3
Syne Offline
Anthropology, showing how observations that long ago are even more relevant today.
Not my problem if you can't see past the rhetorical license.
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#4
Magical Realist Offline
"The theory is simple: If people become less religious, then society will decay. Crime will skyrocket, violence will rise, and once-civilized life will degenerate into immorality and depravity. It's an old, widespread notion. And it's demonstrably false.

If it were true that when belief in God weakens, societal well-being diminishes, then we should see abundant evidence for this. But we don't. In fact, we find just the opposite: Those societies today that are the most religious — where faith in God is strong and religious participation is high — tend to have the highest violent crime rates, while those societies in which faith and church attendance are the weakest — the most secular societies — tend to have the lowest.

We can start at the international level. The most secular societies today include Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Hungary, China and Belgium. The most religious societies include Nigeria, Uganda, the Philippines, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Senegal, Malawi, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Jordan, Algeria, Ghana, Venezuela, Mexico and Sierra Leone.

It is the highly secularized countries that tend to fare the best in terms of crime rates, prosperity, equality, freedom, democracy, women's rights, human rights, educational attainment and life expectancy. (Although there are exceptions, such as Vietnam and China, which have famously poor human rights records.) And those nations with the highest rates of religiosity tend to be the most problem-ridden in terms of high violent crime rates, high infant mortality rates, high poverty rates and high rates of corruption...

...What about within the United States? According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center, the 10 states that report the highest levels of belief in God are Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma (tied with Utah). The 10 states with the lowest levels of belief in God are Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Alaska, Oregon and California. And as is the case in the rest of the world, when it comes to nearly all standard measures of societal health, including homicide rates, the least theistic states generally fare much better than the most theistic. Consider child-abuse fatality rates: Highly religious Mississippi's is twice that of highly secular New Hampshire's, and highly religious Kentucky's is four times higher than highly secular Oregon's."----
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-...story.html
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#5
Syne Offline
Societal well being has objectively diminished. Single parents are a high predictor of crime, substance addiction/abuse, and mental illness. It's only because the religious also tend to be poorer that crime associated with poverty may also correlate with religiosity. But we know religiosity is a protective factor to criminality.

A few studies have found a negative correlation between religiosity and criminality. A 2001 meta-analysis found, "religious beliefs and behaviors exert a moderate deterrent effect on individuals' criminal behavior".
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistica...r#Religion

Lumping all religions together and refusing to account for other factors, like poverty, is intellectually dishonest.

In terms of suicide, a factor in mental health and perceived well-being, the US is lower than Sweden, Finland, Japan, and Belgium. And if we look at female suicide, a possible reflection on perceived equality, the US is lower than France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, and Belgium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_so...icide_rate
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#6
Magical Realist Offline
"It is the highly secularized countries that tend to fare the best in terms of crime rates, prosperity, equality, freedom, democracy, women's rights, human rights, educational attainment and life expectancy. (Although there are exceptions, such as Vietnam and China, which have famously poor human rights records.) And those nations with the highest rates of religiosity tend to be the most problem-ridden in terms of high violent crime rates, high infant mortality rates, high poverty rates and high rates of corruption..".
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#8
C C Offline
(Mar 2, 2018 06:21 AM)Syne Wrote: [video - Paul Harvey]


Setting aside this possibly being not so much a forecast as the ensuing decades after that being just more varied iterations of the same-old, same-old... Receiving tweaks and makeovers with newer generations...

subversion . . . the purpose is to spread knowledge about the true nature of society [change to placeholder for whatever system of conventions and economics is in power], as well as to spread corruption by promoting prostitution, drug abuse, thoughtcrime, terrorism, and other forms of criminal activities that would weaken the Party in any way possible [change Party to "generic reigning tradition"]. (fictional scapegoat Emmanuel Goldstein, The Brotherhood)

Conceiving such deterioration as resulting from some master plot / plan (of figurative devil or human organization) might be just that: Inferred after the events rather than being wholly the source beforehand. Kind of similar to early life organizing into multicellular entities that eventually prey on each other. Looks like design via deliberative agency, but instead consequences falling out of blind interactions that build on each other developmentally.

But OTOH, there's the bias or filter of perspective from a lower stratum. Imagine microscopic space-alien robots suddenly finding themselves wandering around in a human brain with no idea what it is. Doing their own version of a fantasy Fantastic Voyage. They might not guess that the fibrous structure and chemical factory they are exploring at their immediate level emerges into a consciousness and intelligence at a higher level or POV.

While seemingly absurd (in terms of disinformation tactics) that any mastermind, covertly manipulated movement, or single group of conspirators could coordinate grand-scale sedition and be held responsible... Lots of random or only loosely connected voices, thought-meisters and agitators as influences simply playing out on their own local soap boxes... Might collectively add-up to results which from a wider vantage resembles a sinister game being played or scheming Overmind behind it all.

- - -
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#9
Syne Offline
I think the devil here is more of a rhetorical device than mastermind or organization. It's the pernicious part of human nature.
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