Religion, what's the point?

JohnDoe said:
What a strange post. What do you think the purpose of polls is if not extrapolation?
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Which is fine, however what I just said is still true. It ceases to be a fact, and is merely an assumption. So if you present it as fact, you're simply wrong. If 90% of the people interviewed believe something, it does not mean that 90% of a much wider audience believe that. There's a chance they do, but it's an assumption. It's fairly simple. An assumption is not fact.
 
Wolverine said:
All terrible statistics, they should be challenged each on its on merits and I regularly do so in arguments with family etc.

The worst of all is the spread of conspiracy theorism (not sure among Muslims per se or if its mainly with Pakistan-British), particularly with things like anti-semitic New world order type of stuff and all the other "inside job" kind of nonsense which too should be challenged. British Muslims I find are batshit crazy on many issues and and with a completely different mentality to say, American Muslims or even Muslims worldwide.

A lot of it is social media and the way people consume information, now it through a filter which reinforces their narrow-minded worldview. That being said many of them still, downright lovely people, just a warped stupid view of politics which should be challenged not by force but by arguments/dialogue.
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I'm not one who really makes these theories because I simply do not have the time to research such matters and therefore cannot credit or discredit such theories but I am glad there are people who do. I don't think we should always just accept what were told and not question anything, that mentality would lead us to a much darker society.
 
Silva said:
They're still a better indicator than the like-minded friends you have.
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I don't believe I've mentioned my friends at any point. Also even if it were, I fail to see how it is. If anything, it's the same. A random pool of people taken and polled on their thoughts with the results grossly exaggerated to make an assumption that could be completely false. I think it's ignorant to accept an assumption as fact, disregarding all variables and merits.

What happens in your mind when you get two polls that contradict each other? Are they both right 'cos extrapolation'
 
Zarlak said:
Which is fine, however what I just said is still true. It ceases to be a fact, and is merely an assumption. So if you present it as fact, you're simply wrong. If 90% of the people interviewed believe something, it does not mean that 90% of a much wider audience believe that. There's a chance they do, but it's an assumption. It's fairly simple. An assumption is not fact.
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A well-run opinion poll with a representative sample is more than just an "assumption". They are amazingly accurate - in theory, 100% accurate with a 100% representative sample.
 
Zarlak said:
I don't believe I've mentioned my friends at any point. Also even if it were, I fail to see how it is. If anything, it's the same. A random pool of people taken and polled on their thoughts with the results grossly exaggerated to make an assumption that could be completely false. I think it's ignorant to accept an assumption as fact, disregarding all variables and merits.

What happens in your mind when you get two polls that contradict each other? Are they both right 'cos extrapolation'
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Well run polls generally don't have too much discrepancy between them.
 
It's interesting that the questions used in that poll can't be found online any longer, nor can I seem to find sample sizes and data used in the poll itself. Maybe that's just me that can't find it.


I ask you this then Silva and co, since we've argued over this many times before. I seem to remember having an argument with you or Saliph about a stat you brought up saying that 70% percent of British Muslims wanted to live under Sharia law or something similar. It was one that one of you threw around a couple of times and I challenged you on it. If I remember rightly a few hundred people were polled and it was claimed true under extrapolation.

The British Muslim poll that surveyed over 1500 British Muslims found the following answers to questions that we seem to hear the opposite of in the newspapers.

Do you support terrorism in the name of Islam?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

Do you think it is acceptable to kill innocent people in the name of Islam?
Yes: 1 1%
No: 1507 99%

Do you believe the Quran justifies suicide bombings or terrorism against innocent people?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

Do you think Sharia law should apply to non-Muslims in the UK?
Yes: 31 2%
No: 1480 98%

Would you like to live under Sharia law in the UK?
Yes: 323 21%
No: 1188 79%


Here's a second one featured on the BBC;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6309983.stm

  • 59% of Muslims would prefer to live under British law, compared with 28% who would prefer to live under Sharia law

So does that mean your previous claim is completely false? Two polls that surveyed at least 5x the people that the poll you used did that shows different results. Or does it simply show that grossly exaggerating a finding into a huge assumption isn't necessarily reliable? How does it work when polls oppose each other? Do you choose the one you want to believe? A sample size of 200 last time we had this debate was enough for you to proclaim it to be true and reliable.

I can't for example, believe for a second that in the first poll I mentioned only one person thought it acceptable to kill innocent people in the name of Islam. I just can't. If true, I'm very glad that that was the attitude but I can't believe that only one tosser was there that day. The point still stands though that a small sample size extrapolated does not present fact, it presents an assumption. That point cannot be argued. It's a guess. It may be an educated guess, it may be a guess with some weight behind it, but it's a guess. Why can't you accept that. Why can't you then see that it can't be proclaimed as fact?

Also when it comes to conflicting polls, at what point do you decide to believe something is true based on nothing but it's statement, without even trying to look into its merits, variables, weaknesses etc and at what point do you decide to actually scrutinize something else because you find it hard to believe and want to show it to be wrong? I would imagine for example that your next response will be to try and discredit my sources which is absolutely fine, as a.) I don't expect you to renege on your position and b.) I have no idea as to their authenticity and from my own opinion on extrapolation am open to the fact that they could be completely wrong, but this just makes me wonder how you can blindly stick up for your own sources without considering their own merits also.
 
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Yep, its old hence they probably removed some of the linked docs from their original directories.
 
That poll lets them choose who is innocent, Anjem Choudary would answer the same as most of those people. Questions like "Should the Danish cartoonist be prosecuted" are a better indicator of who people think is innocent. Not that I'm claiming that one is true either, I've never heard of it it since today.

I can't recall ever claiming that Muslims are trying to bring Sharia Law here. Most people who come here from shitholes quickly realize our legal system is significantly better.
 
Silva said:
That poll lets them choose who is innocent, Anjem Choudary would answer the same as most of those people. Questions like "Should the Danish cartoonist be prosecuted" are a better indicator of who people think is innocent. Not that I'm claiming that one is true either, I've never heard of it it since today.

I can't recall ever claiming that Muslims are trying to bring Sharia Law here. Most people who come here from shitholes quickly realize the legal system here is significantly better.
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Sorry, it was your friend Saliph.

Saliph said:
How do you define "trouble", and what data are you basing this claim on?

36% of young British Muslims according to a poll think that apostates should be murdered. Over 70% of British Muslims want to live under sharia law. "Trouble"?

If the Qur'an and Hadith were all about peace, love and non-violence, the problem obviously wouldn't be the religion. If the guys who perpetrated this latest attack had claimed to be Jains, the core principle of which is non-violence, their behavior would've been completely unintelligible.
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You then both tag teamed me about how you can say it's true because this is how polls work. So you indirectly claimed it, as you backed Saliph up on the statement that he made that I then opposed for the reasons I posted above.

I just think believing something on it's basic statement without looking at it's flaws, limitations, and its own merits is absurd, as is claiming that a guess is a fact. 70% of 200 British Muslims said they want to live under Sharia law, but on the other hand 99% of 1500 British Muslims said that they don't. So who is right? Does either one have to be right? Could it just be a case of faulty logic by pretending to know the minds of 3 million people by asking a few?

Could we replicate one of these studies? Round up 200 random people and then proclaim the results as the truth? What is the bare minimum that we would have to do to make it legit, and what if another poll then told a different story? Is one telling the truth and one lying? Or is it just a case of insufficient sample size to accurately attempt to say what 3 million people feel like.
 
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Zarlak said:
Sorry, it was your friend Saliph.



You then both tag teamed me about how you can say it's true because this is how polls work. So you indirectly claimed it, as you backed Saliph up on the statement that he made that I then opposed for the reasons I posted above.

I just think believing something on it's basic statement without looking at it's flaws, limitations, and its own merits is absurd, as is claiming that a guess is a fact.
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I read four pages after the post you quoted and I didn't even indirectly do that, pretty much all of my posts were about how harsh we're on Muslims. If I jumped in on a spat you were having about polls it's probably because you seem to question any that you don't like the sound of.
 
Do you support terrorism in the name of Islam?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

Do you think it is acceptable to kill innocent people in the name of Islam?
Yes: 1 1%
No: 1507 99%

Do you believe the Quran justifies suicide bombings or terrorism against innocent people?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

These answers are truly worthless though. "Innocent" and "terrorism" is in the eye of the beholder. These are leading questions.
 
JohnDoe said:
Do you support terrorism in the name of Islam?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

Do you think it is acceptable to kill innocent people in the name of Islam?
Yes: 1 1%
No: 1507 99%

Do you believe the Quran justifies suicide bombings or terrorism against innocent people?
Yes: 3 1%
No: 1508 99%

These answers are truly meaningless though. "Innocent" and "terrorism" is in the eye of the beholder. These are leading questions.
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As is 'punishment' when being asked about the Danish cartoon.

The main source of those questions was to directly challenge a stat that Saliph and Silva had debated with me earlier in this thread, which was that 70% of British Muslims want to live under Sharia law and then lead into a debate about what happens when two polls oppose each other. Is one lying? One telling the truth? Or does it simply show that extrapolation is a guess, and not a fact that can't be reliable on a small sample size. The last time we had this debate, it was argued that a sample size of 200 was perfectly fine since that's what extrapolation is all about. I notice that Silva hasn't taken me up on those questions.

Silva said:
I read four pages after the post you quoted and I didn't even indirectly do that, pretty much all of my posts were about how harsh we're on Muslims. If I jumped in on a spat you were having about polls it's probably because you seem to question any that you don't like the sound of.
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I question them in general on the simple logic that an estimation is not a fact. Not ones that I don't like the sound of. Hence me posting about how my own sources could also be completely wrong.
 
I agree if that's true, but that isn't really relevant to the questions I'm trying to ask you.

We can't go from '70% do think it, this poll says so, and 200 is perfectly fine to then extrapolate to the entire country' to once having 79% of an audience 7 and a half times larger disagreeing saying 'well you know, 21% is still loads anyway'. It highlights a flaw in extrapolation which is what I'm trying to argue. IMO you simply can't call an estimation fact on the basis of 'they're usually really accurate' because the process is inherently flawed. Neither does my argument that it's flawed mean that the result is false, just that the statement isn't necessarily true.
 
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Zarlak said:
As is 'punishment' when being asked about the Danish cartoon.

The main source of those questions was to directly challenge a stat that Saliph and Silva had debated with me earlier in this thread, which was that 70% of British Muslims want to live under Sharia law and then lead into a debate about what happens when two polls oppose each other. Is one lying? One telling the truth? Or does it simply show that extrapolation is a guess, and not a fact that can't be reliable on a small sample size. The last time we had this debate, it was argued that a sample size of 200 was perfectly fine since that's what extrapolation is all about. I notice that Silva hasn't taken me up on those questions.



I question them in general on the simple logic that an estimation is not a fact. Not ones that I don't like the sound of. Hence me posting about how my own sources could also be completely wrong.
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Not really. "Punishment" only begs the question of what kind of punishment they're talking about.

When two polls oppose each other that's usually because of key methodological differences. Either different questions were asked (or questions that convey a different meaning) or the sample in one (or both) of the polls is wrong. Or the numbers in one of them are cooked. Two identical opinion polls with similar samples are not going to oppose each other to that degree.
 
Silva said:
They're still very good, and when one is wrong, others, like you've provided now, will prove it. I don't see what's wrong with that.
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It shows that believing it in the first place on nothing more than face value without first judging it on its merits is foolish.

JohnDoe said:
Not really. "Punishment" only begs the question of what kind of punishment they're talking about.

When two polls oppose each other that's usually because of key methodological differences. Either different questions were asked (or questions that convey a different meaning) or the sample in one (or both) of the polls is wrong. Or the numbers in one of them are cooked. Two identical opinion polls with similar samples are not going to oppose each other to that degree.
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I can't agree. What you say about punishment I think is the same for innocence. The answers could be skewed in completely different contexts with questions like that. I also wonder as to why it's okay for people to be throwing around this punishment stat in arguments when you can't actually see what questions were asked. People are throwing this everywhere since it got featured in the Affleck / whoever the other guys are debate and yet you can't seem to actually find the content anywhere.
 
Zarlak said:
I can't agree. What you say about punishment I think is the same for innocence. The answers could be skewed in completely different contexts with questions like that. I also wonder as to why it's okay for people to be throwing around this punishment stat in arguments when you can't actually see what questions were asked. People are throwing this everywhere since it got featured in the Affleck / whoever the other guys are debate and yet you can't seem to actually find the content anywhere.
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Raoul posted it on this page.

Zarlak said:
It shows that believing it in the first place on nothing more than face value without first judging it on its merits is foolish.
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I'm not sure if that's the case. I don't think anyone here is swearing blind loyalty to every poll ever.
 
Zarlak said:
It shows that believing it in the first place on nothing more than face value without first judging it on its merits is foolish.



I can't agree. What you say about punishment I think is the same for innocence. The answers could be skewed in completely different contexts with questions like that. I also wonder as to why it's okay for people to be throwing around this punishment stat in arguments when you can't actually see what questions were asked.
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I think the word was prosecuted. Anyway, there's an obvious difference between the words innocent and punishment used in that context. When you ask whether someone thinks that innocent people should be murdered, that becomes a question of definition. Who is innocent and who isn't? Punishment on the other hand is a fairly straightforward word, even if it's not specific as to what kind of punishment.

I do agree though that we need to see the full questions in order to have an informed debate about this.
 
JohnDoe said:
I think the word was prosecuted. Anyway, there's an obvious difference between the words innocent and punishment used in that context. When you ask whether someone thinks that innocent people should be murdered, that becomes a question of definition. Who is innocent and who isn't? Punishment on the other hand is a fairly straightforward word, even if it's not specific as to what kind of punishment.
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Punishment could literally be a reprimand. Which I would also disagree with because I don't believe there was anything wrong with the Danish cartoon, but it would hardly be the newsworthy terrifying reality check that it's being made out to be in absence of being able to see the actual questions asked. You're also right, the wording was prosecuted which is my mistake, though my core thoughts on the accuracies of polling 200 people and claiming it represents 3,000,000 are a separate thing.
 
Zarlak said:
Which is fine, however what I just said is still true. It ceases to be a fact, and is merely an assumption. So if you present it as fact, you're simply wrong. If 90% of the people interviewed believe something, it does not mean that 90% of a much wider audience believe that. There's a chance they do, but it's an assumption. It's fairly simple. An assumption is not fact.
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Aye, but the purpose of statistical inference is to be able to make informed hypotheses given a sample of data.

I'm too arsed to dig out my stats book right now, but given a certain population, suppose that 20% of a random sample show some characteristic. It can be proven that with some specified probability, 20 +/- e % of the population from which the sample was drawn show that characteristic. For standard rates of error (0.5-5%), e can be as low as 1% and high as 10%.

A fact would be...

"We can state with 99% probability that given the sample results, between 85% and 95% of the population believe something".1

Which is as close to certainty as you can get.

1. Pulled that line out my arse, but I'm sure the report specifies such numbers, and the assumptions that went into the calculation. Unless it's another shoddy pseudo-scientific poll.
 
adexkola said:
Aye, but the purpose of statistical inference is to be able to make informed hypotheses given a sample of data.

I'm too arsed to dig out my stats book right now, but given a certain population, suppose that 20% of a random sample show some characteristic. It can be proven that with some specified probability, 20 +/- e % of the population from which the sample was drawn show that characteristic. For standard rates of error (0.5-5%), e can be as low as 1% and high as 10%.

A fact would be...

"We can state with 99% probability that given the sample results, between 85% and 95% of the population believe something".1

Which is as close to certainty as you can get.

1. Pulled that line out my arse, but I'm sure the report specifies such numbers, and the assumptions that went into the calculation. Unless it's another shoddy pseudo-scientific poll.
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And yet the two that I've brought up completely refute it. One must be right and one must be wrong. Which is why I'm of the belief that believing it in the first place on nothing more than face value without first judging it on its merits is foolish.
 
Zarlak said:
And yet the two that I've brought up completely refute it. One must be right and one must be wrong. Which is why I'm of the belief that believing it in the first place on nothing more than face value without first judging it on its merits is foolish.
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Yeah I was just commenting on the stats.

Edit: J tittyfecking C... I just looked at Gallop's methodologies (they conduct polls in America on important stuff like the President's rating), and they sample 1000-1500 people nationwide. Their error margin is +/- 4%. They take great care to ensure randomness, but still, that is astounding.
 
JustAFan said:
Is there any major religion today that doesn't owe some if not a large part of it's spread to the use of violence against those who beleived otherwise? Certainly Christianity and Islam do. Not sure about the various other religions.
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Jainism and Buddhism come to mind immediately. Not sure if Jainism can be taken as a major religion though
 
sajeev said:
Buddhism in Sri Lanka negates this though
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Wasn't the Sri Lankan conflict a more ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese people and the Tamils in Sri Lanka rather than a religious conflict?

To be honest I was referring to the spread of both the religions in India and South East Asia and I am not sure it can be said that Buddhism spread across Asia through violence.

Edit: I must also add that I am not aware of history of spread of Buddhism in Sri Lanka; and you could be right and there may be atrocities done in the name of Buddhism or followers of Buddhism in Sri Lanka to facilitate the spread of the religion.
 
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harshadgada said:
Wasn't the Sri Lankan conflict a more ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese people and the Tamils in Sri Lanka rather than a religious conflict?

To be honest I was referring to the spread of both the religions in India and South East Asia and I am not sure it can be said that Buddhism spread across Asia through violence.

Edit: I must also add that I am not aware of history of spread of Buddhism in Sri Lanka; and you could be right and there may be atrocities done in the name of Buddhism or followers of Buddhism in Sri Lanka to facilitate the spread of the religion.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Nonsense. Unless you beleive that all 1500 who were invovled in the polls were extremists who have twisted definitions of innorcent and terrorism...
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I think it would have been better to just ask them about 'civilians' instead of 'innocents'.
I don't believe that the answers are worthless like JohnDoe but I think they let more room for interpretation than asking about a civilian and thus less accurate.

But I also have to say that those polls have to be taken with a grain of salt if you don't know how people got chosen.
Because they are not random (which would give horrible results), they have to be representative.
e.g. reflect the age distribution, education, participation in Muslim organisations/clubs, nationality and country of origin (if they are of British nationality) of the Muslim people in the country etc.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
No, I don't. When you pick random people for a poll, the chances of a twisted definition of terrorism and innocent will be negligible. Again with a clear majority in results, unless the poll was conducted in a extremist camp, the subjectivity gets negated.
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But almost everyone is going to say "no, innocent people shouldn't be harmed", regardless of who they are or their background. I don't think anyone ever doubted that. Personally I'd be more interested to know whether people with Muslim backgrounds agree with our generally held morals. Like the pew poll only in places where Muslims are the minority. Because I suspect there are some great discrepancies.
 
the pew insitute is also polling Muslims in the USA, so you might start there. Havnt fully read that part, but Muslims seem to be farily well integrated and seem to share most of the morals, that religious christians hold.
 
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