5 ms·

Joined with a rise in suicides https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/suicides-homicides-rise-young-people-n1067786 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-

by gscott 7y ago

Joined with a rise in suicides https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/suicides-homicides-rise-young-people-n1067786 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/suicides-homici... and mass killings https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/13/northwestern-research-shows-us-mass-shootings-rise https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/13/northwestern-research-shows... and violent crime https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/violent-crime-murder-chicago-increase-.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/violent-crime-murder-c... and homelessness https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homelessness-on-the-rise-in-some-u-s-cities/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homelessness-on-the-rise-in-som... What do Christian churches do? (quick Google search random). https://www.uchristianchurch.org/mission-and-outreach/ https://www.uchristianchurch.org/mission-and-outreach/ https://www.diamondcanyon.org/missions https://www.diamondcanyon.org/missions https://www.newhopechristianchurch.com/missions https://www.newhopechristianchurch.com/missions http://northridge.online/about/missions http://northridge.online/about/missions

teunispeters 7y ago
In general, replace all of the social and infrastructure with themselves at the center and then there's nothing to replace when the churches fail to serve the people - so people leave. (I've never been a member of any - I just study - as a hobby - "conversion era" in Europe. Be aware that some of what the church replaced was toxic, and some was not. It's an interesting set of eras to study....) The churches have failed though, largely. And finding out why can be informative. (this is not a religious failure, this is a social one. Don't blame peoples' beliefs for this, that's not the right target).
vkou 7y ago
I think all of those things are clearly caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2, and the correlated reduction in maritime piracy. Or, mayhaps, there are more mundane, economic explanations for them...
- Endy 7y ago
  Would you agree that there's a real relation there, though? That piracy was affected by industrialization and militarization as was CO2 output?
  - tokai 7y ago
    «This parodies the suggestion from some religious groups that the high numbers of disasters, famines, and wars in the world is due to the lack of respect and worship toward their deity.» https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirat...
- epmaybe 7y ago
  You deserve much more credit for this comment than you will get. Correlation does not equal causation!
  - kennymeyers 7y ago
    I agree. I think it matches the absurdity of the original comment perfectly.
keithnoizu 7y ago
Assuming there is direct causation here rather than simple correlation I'll take it. The long term harms of religion far outweigh these items. You don't have to look much further than the death toll in the middle east for an example.
- jumpman500 7y ago
  You’re being unfair to gscott. He didn’t make a causation claim.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Just a heavy implication.
  - kennymeyers 7y ago
    It's implied considering how irrelevant those statistics are to this conversation.
    - jumpman500 7y ago
      I think it’s ok to bring up anecdotes as long as you don’t outright say they’re causal.
- hinkley 7y ago
  One of the services a church provides is a community. For some religions it’s wielded as a weapon though. Leave, and lose everything. Take a peek at /r/exmormon for a bunch of examples. What people need is a secular community to replace it, and not all find it. Some of the things listed above are exacerbated by feelings of isolation or lack of purpose. A lie is best concealed between two truths. Churches know how to organize people. It’s a rare set of people management skills that has nothing specific to do with the Divine. They’ve just had more opportunity to hone those skills. But as humans we often trust people who show expertise in multiple areas to be telling us the truth about other things as well. There are plenty of good things that happen at churches, but they don’t have to happen at a church. And the more they happen in the secular world, the more people figure out they can pick and chose things that make them feel like decent human beings without signing up for the others. That’s either a terrifying or comforting statement, depending on which way you are coming from.
theseadroid 7y ago
correlation != causation Europe has been though a similar de-religion phase without many of the problems you stated.
claudeganon 7y ago
Yeah, it’s almost as if a Christian-backed conservative political coalition dismantled the welfare state and stopped new services from being put in place or something...
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how provocative another comment is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Arguably the second blow does more damage to the container.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    As a moderator, is there a reason you're dinging the person making the second blow, but not the first?
    - dang 7y ago
      A few reasons I suppose: the first comment was already dinged by the community; the second comment upped the ante considerably; and I was insufficiently aware of how inflammatory the topic is. By which I mean: I was well aware of how inflammatory the topic is, and even that was not enough. So I learned something in this thread.
    - claudeganon 7y ago
      dang was right to ding me. I was bullied as a kid by right-wing Christians espousing these kinds of talking points and projected that lingering resentment into this conversation. Apologies.
      - dang 7y ago
        Thank you for reacting so kindly.
wetpaws 7y ago
Crime rate is on global decline for several decades (even article you linked mentions that)
damnyou 7y ago
Also joined with a rise in support for LGBTQ rights. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
jamesrcole 7y ago
In addition to what others have said about correlation vs causation, this "less religious societies have more violence and social problems" view doesn't stand up to the statistics https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/our-humanity-natural...
dangus 7y ago
Besides the other replies to you discussing correlation not being causation - is the purpose of your comment to disseminate truth or convince others to join a religion? And why don't you link to us religious missions of non-Christian religions like Islam or Judaism? Let's (easily) debunk each of your sources to demonstrate their complete irrelevance to this topic: - The Mass Killings article you post describes mass shootings, which are a specific type of homicide with a narrow definition. Homicides overall are down dramatically since the early 1990s. Mass shootings are aided by poor gun control policies and mass availability of guns in the United States. Mass shootings are not prevalent in developed countries that are not the United States in significant numbers. - The Violent Crime article you've cited only talks about the past two consecutive years, not the decade-long time period cited by the religious affiliation trends in this article. - Homeless populations probably aren't sampled in this phone survey, so the homelessness rate can't be correlated with the information given here. Your weak correlation to religion is entirely debunked by choosing just about any Western/Northern European country, or much of Asia like China, South Korea, and Japan, and noticing that their religious affiliation numbers are far lower than the US has ever been, along with their violent crime rate. What do Christian churches do? They certainly don't pay property taxes, so they don't fund public schools, police, or mental health services, like a normal business or resident would if they occupied the property.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  > The Mass Killings article you post describes mass shootings, which are a specific type of homicide with a narrow definition. Homicides overall are down dramatically since the early 1990s. Mass shootings are aided by poor gun control policies and mass availability of guns in the United States. Mass shootings are not prevalent in developed countries that are not the United States in significant numbers. Homicides are indeed down, and that includes firearm homicides as well. When people mention any recent rise in firearm deaths, what they are are really saying is that firearm suicides are on the rise. As for prevalence, it's not as uneven as you would think. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/05/viral-tweet-about-mass-shootings-country-it-needs-/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/05... >In one study by the Crime Prevention Research Center, the United States actually ranked 66th among other world nations when it came to the frequency mass public shootings per capita. >And when just comparing European countries with the United States and Canada, the U.S. ranked 12th in a comparative study between 2009-2015. https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from...
nine_k 7y ago
This is also correlated with the rise of a new and powerful religion, informally called progressism. If you don't think it's a religion, try to speak publicly against it, and observe the kind of protest it's going to evoke. Most of it will not be a calm rational discussion, or even a light-hearted dismissal. For many, you would appear attacking the holy. The experiment above is dangerous; I'd suggest studying preivous experimental data first.
manishsharan 7y ago
If we are indulging in causation and correlation mixup, have you noticed that some of the most ruthless public service cutting politicians and outsourcing CEOs are devout church going folks ? You have cut social services and mental support services , branded those who need such services as freeloaders and you are blaming secularism.
- gscott 7y ago
  This is exactly the main issue I see right now, politicians who use Christianity as a banner to do less for people. Which is very confusing to me but somehow they get away with it. This is turning people away from Christianity before they can find out that its purpose is to serve people especially the mentally ill, homeless, poor, etc.

by gscott 7y ago

teunispeters 7y ago

In general, replace all of the social and infrastructure with themselves at the center and then there's nothing to replace when the churches fail to serve the people - so people leave. (I've never been a member of any - I just study - as a hobby - "conversion era" in Europe. Be aware that some of what the church replaced was toxic, and some was not. It's an interesting set of eras to study....) The churches have failed though, largely. And finding out why can be informative. (this is not a religious failure, this is a social one. Don't blame peoples' beliefs for this, that's not the right target).

vkou 7y ago

I think all of those things are clearly caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2, and the correlated reduction in maritime piracy. Or, mayhaps, there are more mundane, economic explanations for them...

Endy 7y ago
Would you agree that there's a real relation there, though? That piracy was affected by industrialization and militarization as was CO2 output?
- tokai 7y ago
  «This parodies the suggestion from some religious groups that the high numbers of disasters, famines, and wars in the world is due to the lack of respect and worship toward their deity.» https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirat...
epmaybe 7y ago
You deserve much more credit for this comment than you will get. Correlation does not equal causation!
- kennymeyers 7y ago
  I agree. I think it matches the absurdity of the original comment perfectly.

keithnoizu 7y ago

Assuming there is direct causation here rather than simple correlation I'll take it. The long term harms of religion far outweigh these items. You don't have to look much further than the death toll in the middle east for an example.

jumpman500 7y ago
You’re being unfair to gscott. He didn’t make a causation claim.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Just a heavy implication.
- kennymeyers 7y ago
  It's implied considering how irrelevant those statistics are to this conversation.
  - jumpman500 7y ago
    I think it’s ok to bring up anecdotes as long as you don’t outright say they’re causal.
hinkley 7y ago
One of the services a church provides is a community. For some religions it’s wielded as a weapon though. Leave, and lose everything. Take a peek at /r/exmormon for a bunch of examples. What people need is a secular community to replace it, and not all find it. Some of the things listed above are exacerbated by feelings of isolation or lack of purpose. A lie is best concealed between two truths. Churches know how to organize people. It’s a rare set of people management skills that has nothing specific to do with the Divine. They’ve just had more opportunity to hone those skills. But as humans we often trust people who show expertise in multiple areas to be telling us the truth about other things as well. There are plenty of good things that happen at churches, but they don’t have to happen at a church. And the more they happen in the secular world, the more people figure out they can pick and chose things that make them feel like decent human beings without signing up for the others. That’s either a terrifying or comforting statement, depending on which way you are coming from.

theseadroid 7y ago

correlation != causation Europe has been though a similar de-religion phase without many of the problems you stated.

claudeganon 7y ago

Yeah, it’s almost as if a Christian-backed conservative political coalition dismantled the welfare state and stopped new services from being put in place or something...

dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how provocative another comment is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Arguably the second blow does more damage to the container.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  As a moderator, is there a reason you're dinging the person making the second blow, but not the first?
  - dang 7y ago
    A few reasons I suppose: the first comment was already dinged by the community; the second comment upped the ante considerably; and I was insufficiently aware of how inflammatory the topic is. By which I mean: I was well aware of how inflammatory the topic is, and even that was not enough. So I learned something in this thread.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    dang was right to ding me. I was bullied as a kid by right-wing Christians espousing these kinds of talking points and projected that lingering resentment into this conversation. Apologies.
    - dang 7y ago
      Thank you for reacting so kindly.

wetpaws 7y ago

Crime rate is on global decline for several decades (even article you linked mentions that)

damnyou 7y ago

Also joined with a rise in support for LGBTQ rights. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

jamesrcole 7y ago

In addition to what others have said about correlation vs causation, this "less religious societies have more violence and social problems" view doesn't stand up to the statistics https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/our-humanity-natural...

dangus 7y ago

Besides the other replies to you discussing correlation not being causation - is the purpose of your comment to disseminate truth or convince others to join a religion? And why don't you link to us religious missions of non-Christian religions like Islam or Judaism? Let's (easily) debunk each of your sources to demonstrate their complete irrelevance to this topic: - The Mass Killings article you post describes mass shootings, which are a specific type of homicide with a narrow definition. Homicides overall are down dramatically since the early 1990s. Mass shootings are aided by poor gun control policies and mass availability of guns in the United States. Mass shootings are not prevalent in developed countries that are not the United States in significant numbers. - The Violent Crime article you've cited only talks about the past two consecutive years, not the decade-long time period cited by the religious affiliation trends in this article. - Homeless populations probably aren't sampled in this phone survey, so the homelessness rate can't be correlated with the information given here. Your weak correlation to religion is entirely debunked by choosing just about any Western/Northern European country, or much of Asia like China, South Korea, and Japan, and noticing that their religious affiliation numbers are far lower than the US has ever been, along with their violent crime rate. What do Christian churches do? They certainly don't pay property taxes, so they don't fund public schools, police, or mental health services, like a normal business or resident would if they occupied the property.

CompanionCuuube 7y ago
> The Mass Killings article you post describes mass shootings, which are a specific type of homicide with a narrow definition. Homicides overall are down dramatically since the early 1990s. Mass shootings are aided by poor gun control policies and mass availability of guns in the United States. Mass shootings are not prevalent in developed countries that are not the United States in significant numbers. Homicides are indeed down, and that includes firearm homicides as well. When people mention any recent rise in firearm deaths, what they are are really saying is that firearm suicides are on the rise. As for prevalence, it's not as uneven as you would think. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/05/viral-tweet-about-mass-shootings-country-it-needs-/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/05... >In one study by the Crime Prevention Research Center, the United States actually ranked 66th among other world nations when it came to the frequency mass public shootings per capita. >And when just comparing European countries with the United States and Canada, the U.S. ranked 12th in a comparative study between 2009-2015. https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from...

nine_k 7y ago

This is also correlated with the rise of a new and powerful religion, informally called progressism. If you don't think it's a religion, try to speak publicly against it, and observe the kind of protest it's going to evoke. Most of it will not be a calm rational discussion, or even a light-hearted dismissal. For many, you would appear attacking the holy. The experiment above is dangerous; I'd suggest studying preivous experimental data first.

manishsharan 7y ago

If we are indulging in causation and correlation mixup, have you noticed that some of the most ruthless public service cutting politicians and outsourcing CEOs are devout church going folks ? You have cut social services and mental support services , branded those who need such services as freeloaders and you are blaming secularism.

gscott 7y ago
This is exactly the main issue I see right now, politicians who use Christianity as a banner to do less for people. Which is very confusing to me but somehow they get away with it. This is turning people away from Christianity before they can find out that its purpose is to serve people especially the mentally ill, homeless, poor, etc.