Originally posted by sumydidThey are not "rhetorical questions" nor are they based on "false information". You simply have so far not addressed what I have been asking. Here is the crux of it again: You said "...yep, most of [the people I've known who fit into the SBNR category] have a host of mental and emotional problems." And yet that is not the claim that the research is making.
Why do you ask so many rhetorical questions that are based on false information?
Why do you think the study did not find the same thing that you claim you have found, i.e. "almost ALL the SBNRs" you've known have "a host of mental and emotional problems".
Most people I've known - both from the SBNR category and from the religious category - have not had "mental and emotional problems". Is this not also true for you?
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Originally posted by sumydidI do indeed find it strange that people declare an absolute belief in some kind of god or higher power
The study suggests that group of people who define themselves as "spiritual," but reject all religions, have a higher percentage of mental disorders than the other groups (and by other groups, that includes Atheists).
My life experience tells me that this study seems to have merit.
Think about it in obvious, general terms. Atheists: Don't you find it ...[text shortened]... as if I'm the one that conducted the study, certainly isn't going to change my opinion.
without being able to define it.
However I have yet to find a religious person able or willing to precisely and definitively define their god.
So this is nothing unusual about SBNR people.
And as I made abundantly clear in my post your "life experience" is according to this study clearly wrong.
You are either falling victim of confirmation bias....
Where you remember people who identify as SBNR who you classify as having mental disorders much more strongly
than those who you don't classify as having mental disorders. You remember those who fit your idea of what
an SBNR person should be like over those that don't.
Or you know such a small number of SBNR people that they are an utterly unrepresentative sample with absolutely
no statistical significance.
Or some combination of both.
This study is showing a statistically significant but small in absolute terms increase in the rate of mental disorders
and propensity for drug dependencies among SBNR people compared to religious or atheist people.
The vast majority of SBNR people will not have a mental disorder or drug dependency.
According to the article you linked. 19% of the sample who claimed to have "a religious understanding of life" were
SBNR. If we assume that that was the percentage of SBNR people in the general population (an over estimate) and
we use the USA's rate of mental illness (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20040601/rate-of-mental-illness-is-staggering)
given here at 25% and then use the highest odds ration of 1.77 given for drugs dependency.
Then we can calculate thus...
The rate of mental illness in SBNR people is X. The Rate of mental illness in ~SBNR is Y.
X=1.77Y : Y=X/1.77
19% of the population are SBNR. 81% are ~SBNR.
Thus (19X+81Y)/100=25
Substituting Y for X we get (((19*1.77)+81)Y)/100=25
Solving for Y we get Y=21.8%
X = 1.77Y = 38.6%
So according to these worst case numbers, the rate of mental illness in people who identify as SBNR is 38.6% compared to 21.8% for
those who do not identify as SBNR. The actual number will be less than this as I overestimated both the difference in rate between
the two groups AND overestimated the size of the SBNR contingent which will over emphasise their contribution to the combined total.
And either way this says absolutely NOTHING about whether or not what they believe is or is not true.
Thus is relevant only if what you care about is feeling comfortable about what you believe rather than whether what you
believe is true.
We are not jumping on you because we think the study is wrong.
We are jumping on you because it does not say what you seem to think it says.
This is the Inigo Montoya defence.
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Originally posted by Rank outsiderHeh.
Can you explain the reference?
I am familiar with the character and the book from which he comes, but I can't see the link to 'defence' and its relevance, and googling didn't help.
"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means
Originally posted by googlefudgeI am not sure exactly what you are infering, but I agree that people are continuously using words incorrectly. It's chronic.
Heh.
"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means
