Comments on Epiphenom: Be religious and be free (or at least, let off wit...

isuspect the key ingredient is how much time you s...

2010-02-09T15:05:46.705Z

isuspect the key ingredient is how much time you spend thinking about these - contemplating life. People with violent tendencies are probably driven by different, more immediate motives

The "U-shape" thing is interesting, and ...

2010-02-09T13:49:16.470Z

The "U-shape" thing is interesting, and makes a lot of sense. I've never been a criminal or anything like that, but when I became much firmer and uncompromising in my atheism, I also found myself more inspired to behave more ethically, even with the little things. An example is that a lot of the time at the supermarket, the cashier would forget to ring up the dog food because it was on the bottom rack on the cart. I used to rarely say anything and just pocket the extra money, but since I "got anti-religion" so to speak, I am careful to watch whether they ring it up and make sure they charge me correctly. It's hard to articulate exactly why the change of heart, and maybe the timing was just a coincidence (my son was also born during the interval when I changed my mind) so who knows... just an anecdote, because we all know what great evidence that is!

Heaton's argument is that modern crime rates c...

2010-02-09T08:50:22.988Z

Heaton's argument is that modern crime rates can only be causally related to modern religiosity patterns. It doesn't make sense to say that modern crime is caused by how religious an area was three generations ago.

There will be a statistical relationship of course, but it's an indirect one that results from the fact that modern religiosity is causally related to historic religiosity.

In other words, he uses historic religiosity as an 'instrument' for modern religiosity. It can (indirectly) causally influence modern crime, but can't be causally influenced by modern crime.

If the US counties with more crime today have seen...

2010-02-08T23:24:46.416Z

If the US counties with more crime today have seen a relatively larger drop in numbers of religious people, this doesn't tell us anything about what is the cause or what is the effect. If may work in either direction.

Dr. François-Pierre Gingras
University of Ottaw, Canada

I'd argue his crime was more of a concern sinc...

2010-02-08T23:17:14.286Z

I'd argue his crime was more of a concern since he definitely should have known better. He of little self-control. David Mc