No, but some of them share attributes, which is why statistics are not "irrelevant".

2, 4, 6, 8, ... are all even.
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, ... are all prime.
1, 4, 9, 16, ... are all square.

Etc...etc...

People, on the other hand, are not prime nor even nor square. What is true of one person may not be true of another, and the individuality of each person compared to other people varies too greatly and in too small of ways to ever be compared in such a way as to say 'religion is the factor that caused this person to be nice.'

That is why we already stated that we'd count the things done in the name of their religion.

I read the question again and thought of a more honest answer. Does religion make you nice?

No. Religion makes me cranky.

@leo- And that is why I am stating that doing so would not prove anything. Each individual person would have a different understanding of religion, its doctrines, and its meaning. This would be due to infintessimally small factors about their indivduality that are too great in number and too small in scale to feasibly put people into catergories other than 'themself.'

In other words: your experiment has too many variables, you cannot accurately form a conclusion.

(September 7, 2010 at 7:45 pm)Watson Wrote: @leo- And that is why I am stating that doing so would not prove anything. Each individual person would have a different understanding of religion, its doctrines, and its meaning.

So what? We are not looking at various aspects of various religions, but how people act in the name of their religion and whether it is nice or not nice.

Quote:This would be due to infintessimally small factors about their indivduality that are too great in number and too small in scale to feasibly put people into catergories other than 'themself.'

There is no need to categorize, we measure only the acts people do in name of their religion, not what religion it is.

Quote:In other words: your experiment has too many variables

Only 3. Amount of people, act, nice act/not nice act committed in name of their religion.

Whatever religion of denomination is completely irrelevant.