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We're number one!

Started by Mr.Obvious, October 18, 2017, 02:51:55 AM

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Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Cavebear on October 18, 2017, 12:39:15 PM
Yeah but how far can "I am stupid American" :et you?  My parents visited there once, and got a cold stare until a friend told them which side of the paper currency to show...

Lol, sounds weird. Was this back when we had franks? :p
On the whole, we like tourists. We got kind of a National inferiority-complex going. So we take any interest the outside world throws at us that we can get.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Cavebear

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on October 18, 2017, 02:27:41 PM
Lol, sounds weird. Was this back when we had franks? :p
On the whole, we like tourists. We got kind of a National inferiority-complex going. So we take any interest the outside world throws at us that we can get.

!970s?  Yeah the tourism thing makes sense.    Hey, I've eaten fries with mayo.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Hydra009

@Mr.Obvious The article says the data is from an Ipsos poll.  Is this the poll it's referencing?  It involves 23 countries and Belgium is indeed chief among them with the most respondents saying that religion does more harm than good.

Cavebear

Quote from: Hydra009 on October 18, 2017, 02:54:30 PM
@Mr.Obvious The article says the data is from an Ipsos poll.  Is this the poll it's referencing?  It involves 23 countries and Belgium is indeed chief among them with the most respondents saying that religion does more harm than good.

OK Ipsos seems to be legit (connected to Reuters).  I had to check.  Never heard of them before though.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Hydra009 on October 18, 2017, 02:54:30 PM
@Mr.Obvious The article says the data is from an Ipsos poll.  Is this the poll it's referencing?  It involves 23 countries and Belgium is indeed chief among them with the most respondents saying that religion does more harm than good.

I do believe that is the one.
Sadly though, it's not a completely reliable result in my opinion.
They do a good job bringing out the credibillity of the data they gathered, but gathering data solely via an online medium will, I fear, cause a misrepresentation of the populations within the countries as elder people are generally less likely to partake. And the age for respondends indeed does cut off after 64 years of age. But the rankings of the countries could very well still work as I think that in many western countries our demographics are at least compareable age-wise. Though I don't know how Japan, Brazil, Korea, ... fit in there.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on October 18, 2017, 08:29:00 AM
Bah, they've been ready to split Flanders and the Walloons ever since we became a nation.
I don't think we'll ever bother. It would be too much bother. And that, in a nutshell, is the Belgian attitude to most things.
It's a lot easier and a lot more entertaining just to laugh at your own inadequacy rather than to work on it.
Why change the world when you can just sit back and poke fun at it and yourself?

But Flanders (not Ned) invented Renaissance polyphony ... for Church ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyFHdaCHPgo

Maybe Belgium can be great again.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Ipsos is a generally reliable poll.  FiveThirtyEight grades them an A-; they're unlikely to make a major methodological error.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: trdsf on October 19, 2017, 08:43:21 AM
Ipsos is a generally reliable poll.  FiveThirtyEight grades them an A-; they're unlikely to make a major methodological error.

Well, again, the rankings are probably fine. But if you don't add the 20% oldest people of the participating countries (in Belgium it's about 18% of the population that is over the age of 65) into the equation when it comes to religion, I do suspect you get an overrepressentation of the 'negative' answers. Over here, it seems to me, most of the elderly are more lenient to religion. They were raised with it more. Its people like my grandparents that still define themselves as christian, at least more on a relative scale.
I believe their measurements are correct. And I'm sure they can use that data as representative for the population of these countries ranging from the ages of 16 (or 18) to 65. But if you were to add the +65 age-group, I think your total scores per country would lower. So you can't say 68% of Belgians think lowly of religion. You can only say 68% of Belgians between ages 16 and 65 think lowly of religion. 
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Europeans are much more into political ideology ... utopias, dystopias ... ;-(
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

#24
Quote from: Mr.Obvious on October 19, 2017, 10:07:42 AM
Well, again, the rankings are probably fine. But if you don't add the 20% oldest people of the participating countries (in Belgium it's about 18% of the population that is over the age of 65) into the equation when it comes to religion, I do suspect you get an overrepressentation of the 'negative' answers. Over here, it seems to me, most of the elderly are more lenient to religion. They were raised with it more. Its people like my grandparents that still define themselves as christian, at least more on a relative scale.
I believe their measurements are correct. And I'm sure they can use that data as representative for the population of these countries ranging from the ages of 16 (or 18) to 65. But if you were to add the +65 age-group, I think your total scores per country would lower. So you can't say 68% of Belgians think lowly of religion. You can only say 68% of Belgians between ages 16 and 65 think lowly of religion.
If that's the only range they polled, then yes, that's the correct inference to draw.  However, if you know the size of the over-65 population, you can make intelligent estimates about where the nation stands on the question.  I doubt, however, that there are enough to push that 68% to under 50% even if they all expressed a low opinion of religion.

Looking it up, the over-65s make up 18% of the population, so we can peg a range.  Even if all over-65s do not have a low view of religion, the percentage drops to 55.8% -- still a significant majority.  If they all have a low opinion, it jumps to 73.8%.

Either one is indicative of Belgium rapidly becoming a society separating itself from organized religion.  Whether that means people are moving to deism or personal religion or atheism/agnosticism, I don't know -- probably, though, since a 2015 poll showed that 32% of Belgians identify as either atheist (14.9%) or agnostic/non-religious (17.1%).

Edit: My apologies, you gave the percent of over-65s and I glossed right over it in the race to make a point; I didn't need to look it up.  :D
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

fencerider

your rush to atheism may be correct. I remember in recent times that there was a rush to get Christian missionaries into godless Belgique before it was too late.
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Baruch

Quote from: fencerider on October 22, 2017, 03:31:06 AM
your rush to atheism may be correct. I remember in recent times that there was a rush to get Christian missionaries into godless Belgique before it was too late.

Don't worry, the Muslims take their missionary work seriously.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on October 22, 2017, 09:49:42 AM
Don't worry, the Muslims take their missionary work seriously.

I doubt they are making many converts outside of their already-established area.  The problem is the fanatics they are getting withing it.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on October 23, 2017, 04:24:35 AM
I doubt they are making many converts outside of their already-established area.  The problem is the fanatics they are getting withing it.

The Muslims don't convert (and neither did the Christians) by simple discussion in an erudite salon over a white wine.  It is all about out breeding and out killing the present degenerates who populate W Europe.  This is exactly what the upper class said 100 and 200 years ago, if the lower classes were allowed to run things.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on October 23, 2017, 10:29:50 PM
The Muslims don't convert (and neither did the Christians) by simple discussion in an erudite salon over a white wine.  It is all about out breeding and out killing the present degenerates who populate W Europe.  This is exactly what the upper class said 100 and 200 years ago, if the lower classes were allowed to run things.

Somewhat my basic argument.  The medieval christians were as nuts as the modern moslems.  But the christians had a few more centuries to settle down and the moslems haven't yet.  AND much because the Europeans messed up the moslem internal butcheries (like the medieval christians did) settling out who was where.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!