Atheists and suicide

[liam]

@liam

Emile Durkheim a was as brilliant pioneering sociologists, 'Suide' was still being read when I was an undergraduate in the 1980's and probably still is,for all I know. My perception is that his great contribution in "Suide" was his examination of the concept of 'anomie',for an individual and society, rather than his statistical analysis,which I think is flawed:


Durkheim made his observations in nineteenth century CATHOLIC France. Suicide shamed the family and a suicide could not be buried in hallowed ground. I think it's reasonable to suppose Catholic families would have done all they could to conceal the fact of a suicide. That could well have skewed any statistical records.

Indeed that is true and it has since been criticised on such grounds, this is why I provided the further studies that would confirm Durkheim's hypothesis and his study's conclusions. It also seems logically viable that the protestant section, being more detached from church and viewing the earth as a series of cruelty's, is more prone to suicidal tendencies.

To dismiss Durkheim simply on the basis of when his work was done is simply ignorant.

Indeed, his hypothetical assertion was the most important part of this study, I do believe. While there is a level of cautiousness required in citing older studies they cannot be so easily dismissed as wrong and even if they are perhaps LESS applicable today then they do still give an impression of the issues occurring between different religious groups in general through time

Liam, the quote below is for those unfamiliar with Durkheim, not to patronise you.

Worry not, I understand entirely, besides, another iteration of this quote is never a bad thing and helps it stick in the nogin for A2 sociology

[Mister Agenda]

It would bother me more if atheists had low suicide rates while the theists around them had high suicide rates.

[liam]

It would bother me more if atheists had low suicide rates while the theists around them had high suicide rates.

Wait until atheism because the majority view, then things will change

[Angrboda]

Beyond the problems of methodology, these approaches are testing the hypothesis that there is something about the life experience of the religious which makes them less prone to suicide. Now you can talk about anomie and all sorts of adaptationist "just-so" stories, but until you demonstrate this difference, quantify it, and show that it varies in proportion to suicide rates, you're asserting an effect without a plausible mechanism (plausible in the sense that science uses the term in reference to hypotheses). If you don't have a mechanism, and in this case, the mechanism is largely assumed and assumed to be operative in the religious as a whole, and not in the non-religious, then statistically, it is legitimate to push the bound for Type I errors and require greater statistical significance. (This is colloquially referred to as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Victor Stenger notes that while medical studies require a 0.05 significance, the standard in physics is an order of magnitude higher, and he points out that this has the practical effect of a large proportion of medical studies giving a positive result, only to be overturned later.) So even if there is a weak statistical effect there, that isn't sufficiently significant to be taken as real.

[zentor]

I actually felt more depressed hopeless as a chrisian, that's when my depression began
Always being told that I'm a bad person who is lucky to have Jesus
Or that god chastices his children 16 year old children for masturbating
Or that the reason i have problems in life is cuz I must have some sin in my life.

[KichigaiNeko]

I am of the opinion that religion perpetuates the sentiment of the individual being in a state of depression BECAUSE said individual will NEVER be 'good enough' in the eyes of the 'church/ clergy' and so you are set up to fail from the get go

A horrible cycle of death and destruction... = Jewish Death Cult