Except... there have always been poor people in the South, and the increase in teen pregnancy and STD transmission didn't correspond to an increase in overall poverty.  It coincided with the institutionalization of Abstinence Only Education.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you compare European countries with Comprehensive Sex Ed, you'll find that the rates of pregnancy and disease transmission are lower across economic boundaries, as they are higher across the same boundaries in the U.S.

oh and here's another study:

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf

page 18

page 57

I mean, the argument is that they are less likely to use protection right?

Mmmm.  That is delightfully wicked.  I will sleep soundly tonight thanks to that chortle.

LOL

I can't explain it, Will.  I see articles like this online, and the first thing I think is "It'll be fun to watch Pineapple get pissed about this."

There is no logic to it.  A couple of months ago, I actually went to the trouble of writing out my real argument for why religion is necessarily bad.  Pineapple's response (after some delay) was basically "I disagree with Weinberg."  This jab at a single quote didn't even address any of my arguments, and we digressed into a discussion of cognitive dissonance, which also didn't address any of my arguments.

Since Pineapple is the only theist who typically tries to argue with me, I guess I go out of my way to antagonize her.  I guess she's sort of like the girl in high school (every high school has one) who flirts viciously with every boy in class, and then won't even give them a hand job when they finally get her alone after six months of trying.  Pineapple puts up a damn good show, and then when it comes down to brass tacks and full arguments, she says, "Wanna go have a root beer?"

Also, in all seriousness, Pineapple does generally find the holes in statistics, and tossing an article in front of her is a good way for me to avoid saying something completely stupid in public.  She does the work for me because she's so intent on proving how benign religion is.

I agree with you.  To be perfectly honest, the first month or two she was here, I put her through the grinder pretty hard, and she stayed.  Also, to be fair, she was semi-masquerading as a non-specific age/gender person and brought a certain amount of antagonism on herself by being very evasive on a lot of issues.  Since she decided it's ok to be a young woman on here, she's actually come a long way with regard to discussing the issue at hand and not deflecting everything to another subject.

I can't think why a shy girl-pretending-not-to-be-a-girl would get angry when a bunch of 35 year old atheist men kept calling her on her bullshit...

Seriously, though, I agree with you here, too.   

You mentioned Eloise and Pineapple as the only theists who can stick around for the long term, and I think there's a very good reason for that.  Both of them believe in some sort of quantum computer god thingy that could double as Jefferson and Einstein's "God is the Universe" if only they'd let themselves get pinned down on an actual working definition.  Neither of them believe in a magic god who commands genocide and a moratorium on fun of any sort.  Granted... if there's anyone who needs to loosen up a little and do drunken Strip-Karaoke, it's Pineapple... but outside of her bizarre views on sex, abortion, etc, she does seem to at least want to apply science to every question.  And, in fairness, I think she probably believes science backs up her odd views on sex and abortion, too.

That is the bottom line.  Eloise and Pineapple both pretty much stick to the idea that if their god exists, it can be described by science.  That's really no different from the rest of us.  All that's different is that the two of them really, really want god to be true while the rest of us kind of like the universe without gods.  Pineapple also seems to really want religion to be a force for good in the universe, though I still haven't figured out why.

...

[Eureka Moment /ON]

You know what?  I just talked myself into answering Will's question for real and for true.  I just figured out why I keep antagonizing Pineapple about this stuff.  I really want to know what drives a near-atheist 19... is it 19?... year old Canuck girl to want so badly for religion not to be bad.  She's never been especially religious, lives in a relatively non-religious part of the world, and desperately wants us to be wrong about religion being bad for society.  That's a puzzle to me, and I want to know why.

Final Answer.  

Did I win a million dollars?

I was responding to the second quote in particular.

I feel a certain obligation to weigh in here, and on an unusual side for me.  My middle school and high school education included sex education that described condom use and other profilactic methods.  I suffered through four years worth of material, repeated verbatim, year after year, while the socioeconomically (read:  12 year olds who couldn't read yet) disadvantaged kids giggled and shouted and screamed like a bunch of monkeys in a shit filinging party.  Bush went in (and his abstinence only plan) a couple years after I graduated high school.  Lemme tell you something: 

My high school graduating class was full of pregnant bellies, and lots of kids dropped out before we ever got to that point.  Ten years later, I seriously doubt there were that many more.

Sex ed doesn't matter and it doesn't help.  Kids are going to fuck.  Since kids are stupid, they're going to fuck without protection.  It doesn't matter whether they've been taught about protection and STDs in school or not, because street culture provides all the education a poor kid needs and a wealthy mommy and daddy provide all the care a rich kid needs.  It makes more sense to me to provide the morning after pill and free, anonymous abortions than to pay for sex ed.  Deckchairs on the Titanic.

That argument works well with things like racism, war, etc. Those things are all very much in our nature, and though religion does tend to bring it out or to exacerbate previous situations, people would still act in that way. That's our uncivilized chimp brains overriding our frontal lobes.

But our uncivilized chimp brains also tell us to fuck like rabbits. Life-long monogamy is not supported or encouraged by our sex drive and our tendencies to change. When religions instruct their followers to become sexually repressed, they are doing just that-- repressing an urge, not encouraging it. Without religion, there would be little in the way of sexual freedom.

You and a vast majority of the posters here.

...Am I the only one who isn't getting it?

Explain this to me: from a logical perspective, how is Alison any different at all from, say, Ray Comfort or Ken Ham? I mean, the categories of the world that they choose to see through their own religious glasses is different (Alison prefers hers to re-color history & sociology rather than biology & geology), but it's exactly the same type of willful ignorance. Why do people respect that? If a YEC comes on and posts pictures of the Grand Canyon and starts trying to 'debunk' geology and claim that they can replicate sedimentary strata by stirring mud around in an aquarium, we laugh them off. When Alison points to a Muslim stoning event and claims that the Muslims did it because they're all either impoverished or sociopaths and goes about 'debunking' public record, it seems like she's cut a lot of slack despite being equally way out in the deep end.

Why? 

Why are you a fan of someone for being so brick-headed?

EDIT: In case you want to contest my characterization, there is actually a text-book example right in this thread:

In principle, this is exactly the same argument many YECs will give with regards to large erosion channels like the Grand Canyon: "...I can provide X or Y example of a channel that was carved by a means other than erosion, therefore I posit that as evidence that erosion did not carve out the Grand Canyon."

Behaviors common to religious influence 'popping-up' outside of religious influence is no more evidence that religion is not a causal agent than channels being carved by forces other than erosion is evidence that erosion cannot carve out channels. 

Really? I guess I have missed a lot. Last time I checked, Pineapple's arguments were still pedalling uphill to nowhere, you just flat-out hated her (which came off as grade-school love, I won't lie) and Hamby picked on her.

I don't see that a lot has changed. What I do see is a lot of duelling social science studies, which is frankly hilarious to me. At this rate, the social sciences will have something in maybe 200 years that we can hang our hats on. Durkheim could be said to have given us a step beyond pure speculation, but it seems to me as though speculation is back with a vengeance.

As an example, we have dirty ape's "My class got sex ed, and an unspecified number of girls in that class still got pregnant". You'll excuse me if I'm not convinced with the conclusion that sex education does absolutely nothing. On the other hand, it does point out that there are more factors than just sex ed. That point is, of course, valid. But any degree of certainty might require a couple of generations receiving sex ed before we draw any real conclusions. At this point, we're testing a reasonable hypothesis that with more information, a young person can at least be given a chance at avoiding unwanted pregnancy or disease. Trading that information for a lack of information wouldn't really be education, though.

Girls at 11 and 12 wouldn't be able to help knowing that the image of sluttiness sells. They don't know exactly what that means, but they know that dressing provocatively gets a reaction. We all know it does, and they know that many famous women writhe around on the floor in their underwear, and that it's some part of what makes them famous. There are even people who can remain the center of attention despite embarrassing themselves in sex tapes, or breaking the law. Try combatting that powerful culture as a phys ed teacher! It's you versus biology and every hollow promise of every advertisement and fiction out there. Yikes.

It's just too bad that there aren't more people who will say to their kids, "Okay, you're going to fuck. Wear this so that you don't get pregnant or diseased." Saying nothing and hoping for a Disney scenario is insane.

I point out that these things happen outside of religion to show that you may not be taking enough factors into account. For example, if X can cause the action without religion, is X a factor when you say that it is religion?

So tell me Kevin, if your arguments don't need to undergo the scientific process, why should Comfort's?



I mean Ray could very well use your logic and point to a Christian Red Cross worker and say "Wow, look at the good Christianity is doing!" and he wouldn't need data, or a mechanism because, hey, you don't need one apperantly, so why should he?



Why not rely on just anecdotes and confirmation bias? You do, so why can't he? It may be "obvious" to you that religion causes ills, but to Ray it's "obvious" that it causes good.



Also, while you're here, your constant false dicotomies are rather annoying.


First, DDA's comments in no way indicates that he supports absitence only. My comments in no way suggest I support abstience only education.


Asking for data to support the claim that absitence only increases the STD rate, is in no way being a cheerleader or apologist.


Let me say this clear:


DISAGREEING WITH YOU DOES NOT MAKE THE PERSON A APOLOGIST OR A CHEERLEADER OF THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING



I posted data that suggest that goes against the claim that people who absitence only education are less likely to use protection, that does not in any way mean the I support abstinence only education. All it does is say that that claim is false.





 

I'm in the mood for a bit of theism defense myself.
The obvious answer to this topic is:

Theism =/= Christianity, let alone fundamentalist Christianity.
You can believe in God(s), without having to believe that they want you abstain from sex.