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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 23, 2006 17:06
Allan Adler nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes:
> I don't know enough about the standards of research in social sciences
> and about statistics to know how to evaluate their procedures. I understand
> that they were making the best use of the resources available to them but
> whether that is good enough is another matter. Happily, I bought a book
> at a library book sale yesterday for a buck, entitled, "Research Methods
> for Social Work", by Allen Rubin and Earl Babbie, 4th ed. (Wadsorth/Thompson
> Learning, Belmont, CA, 2001) and now I have an excuse to start reading it.
I've started reading the book of Rubin and Babbie and it has already answered
some questions. Around page 449 is a discussion of Durkheim's classical study
of suicide based on other people's statistics that had already been published.
I'll post a synopsis of what I get out of it as soon as I've read a little
more of it.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 21, 2006 22:59
"Ron Peterson" shell.core.com> writes:
> I don't see why the Imams shouldn't be considered a priesthood.
Lewis' explanation of the absence of church or priesthood from classical
Islam is as follows: "There is no church or priesthood in Islam, neither
theologically, since there is no priestly office or mediation between God
and the individual believer, nor institutionally, since there are no prelates
and no hierarchy."
Note that his assertion (as given in (1) of my posting) is restricted to
classical Islam. As I pointed out in (2) of my posting, Lewis acknowledges
that there were some changes in more recent times in particular places.
In (2a), for example the territorial muftis were introduced by the Ottomans,
but that was not a permanent or global change in Islam itself. It was
specifically Ottoman and only was in effect between the 16th century and
the rise of Kemal Ataturk in the 20th century. Likewise, the Shi'ite
innovations date from the 16th century and the ayatollah wasn't invented
until the 19th century. They are specific to Shi'ite Islam and to Iran
(if I understand Lewis correctly). They aren't characteristic of Islamic
political ideas.
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Author: Ron PetersonRon Peterson
Date: Dec 21, 2006 09:23
Allan Adler wrote:
> Motivated by this question, I pulled another long neglected book off my
> shelf: "The political language of Islam", by Bernard Lewis, published by
> U. of Chicago Press, 1991. I'm now about 50 pages into it. It's quite
> interesting. One reason I selected it is that it brings Islam into the
> discussion, a religion whose tenets and history are not well known, I think,
> to most readers of this group.
> Here are a few highlights of what I have read so far:
> (1) Lewis claims that Islamic governments are not theocratic. His argument
> is roughly as follows: If by theocracy we mean a state governed...
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 19, 2006 21:57
Allan Adler nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes:
> It is extremely unlikely if we measure the probability
> by dividing the number of religious people (numbered in billions) by the
> number of suicide bombers (numbered probably in hundreds).
Actually, we should divide the number of suicide bombers by the number
of religious people to get the probability.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 19, 2006 09:19
"ekrubmeg" yahoo.com> (addressed as "you" in the following) writes:
>Without getting into the psychology of it all
Let's go through your analysis in dribs and drabs.
>a person who is in mental pain i.e. messed up, seeks out relief, it is only
>natural. As the problem started early in life it isn't dealt with for what
>it is but it effects their everyday actions.
If I'm not mistaken, the person ekrubmeg is describing starts out with
psychological problems.
>Religion is one form of relief.
>Hence religion is one way to deal with the pain,
OK. We could equally have written: "Alcohol is one form of relief. Hence,
alcohol is one way to deal with the pain."
>unfortunately while your dealing with your pain reality out is out of your
>grasp. The more messed up you are, the farther you are from reality and the
>more you cling to religion for relief. So you react to the world around you
>in a manner that makes you feel better, i.e. religion, but it never
>gets better because this isn't what you really need.
Again, to the extent that this step is valid, it applies equally well
to alcohol.
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 19, 2006 08:31
"David V." hotmail.com> writes:>Allan Adler wrote:
>> Also, as stated in the article, the study was not designed
>> to answer questions, but to raise them.
>> Indeed. And since questions were merely raised, but not
>> answered, we really have to wait for the other studies that
>> need to criticize this one to appear.
>
>That is the important point, and seems to be the point the study
>was trying to make also.
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 16, 2006 21:27
"ekrubmeg" yahoo.com> writes:
> I don't know how you got I thought there was no pain in Saudi
> etc. I was saying the more pain the more religion or radical
> religion.
>>
>> I'm not saying I agree with ekrubmeg but I can't accept
>> the argument that there is no pain in the US or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
When I wrote: "I'm not saying I agree with ekrubmeg", I was referring to your
comments. When I wrote: "but I can't accept the argument that there is no
pain in the US or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait", I was referring to the comments
of Charles and Mambo Duckman.
Therefore, it is good that you don't see how I got to there from your
comments, because I didn't.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
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Author: ekrubmegekrubmeg
Date: Dec 6, 2006 11:11
People in pain seek out religion, the more pain; the more religion. I
would say that was pretty apparent looking at the Middle East..
David V. wrote: xxxxxxx
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Author: Ron PetersonRon Peterson
Date: Dec 6, 2006 10:46
Allan Adler wrote:
> When I wrote:
>> On p.89, after a discussion of why there were rebellions in some places at
>> some times and not at other places at other times, Blickle inserts a footnote
>> in which he writes: "These relationships may be expressed by the following
>> equation:
>> economic burden+social tension+political expectations
>>readiness to revolt = -------------------------------------------------------
>> strength of legitimation
>>
>> The weaker the force of legitimation, the greater the readiness to revolt."
>> In view of the discussion we've been having about theory, reality and models,
>> perhaps someone would like to comment on the proper classification of this
>> footnote.
> I was hoping someone would object in principle to the apparent quantization
> of things that seem to be inherently unquantifiable. The question is: why
> might this be ok or absolutely not ok to do?
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Author: Allan AdlerAllan Adler
Date: Dec 1, 2006 22:10
"David V." hotmail.com> writes:
> http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
> There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in
> religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated
> with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the
> strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having
> markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital
> and related problems than the northeast where societal
> conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach
> European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002).
How much information is provided on the design of the study?
I read the book, "The Tenacity of Prejudice. Antisemitism in Contemporary
America", by Gertrude Selzner and Stephen Steinberg. They devote an entire
book to a detailed presentation of all aspects of their methodology
and the interpretation of their results. It seems pretty impressive.
How deeply do the authors of the above study go into their methodology
and results? For example, they break the US population up into regions,
but there is no mention in the quotation above of distinctions...
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