Answering Atheist Mythology

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I have answers to John Loftus' arguments made in the latest comment section to this blog.

These are published on Atheist watch.

I especially want to direct your attention to the one about Christians going to prison so much more than atheists (some estimate as high as 60x more). This is nothing but a lie and it's based upon reading the tables wrong. It's totally hilarious because I find this bit of sheer propaganda repeated ad infinitum. I disproved it twice on two different websites. The first time it was gone for over three years. It was truly killed because the mistake so blaring. Now they make the same mistake again and change the tables so it's less obvious.

I will also be presenting more arguments on different issues raised by Loftus here later this evening.

I am realy sick of this atheist mythology that won't die because it's so obviously based upon someone who is not hip to statitistics or the way you read a table. They never catch on because it's become an actual watchword of the atheist movement and it's based on just an obvious mistake.

Comments

Anonymous said…
If I recall correctly, Vox Day showed in TIA that statistics do not support the idea that atheists go to prison less often.

Can you give me a link were you provided statistics?
3/08/2009 02:17:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
they read the statistics wrong. That's clear. It is probalby true that more people in prision actually call themselves Christians. I exaplined why that would be the case. But the numbers are way out of proportion.

1 in 10 in prison are atheist, but only 3% of the population is atheist. The figures on "Christians" the standard bell curve given the population. Atheists are out of proposition in prison.

You can see this from the stats they give.
3/08/2009 07:05:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Measuring what people believe is a tricky business. But here's the latest data from Trinity College, Hartford:

http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/

"Only1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death."


Of course it's all a matter of "lies, damned lies and statistics" isn't it? ;-) There's nothing in any of this which is, or should be, persuasive either way as to whether or not I personally should believe in the existence of god(s)...
3/10/2009 08:45:00 AM
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