Survey About Beliefs

[Lucas Commons-Miller]

Hello,

Salem State College, Calumet College, and The Dare Institute, a non-
profit research institute, are inviting potential participants from
various backgrounds for an online study on how adults differ in their
development of beliefs and their reasoning about beliefs. The purpose
of this study is to explore, on an empirical basis, how peoples views
on beliefs change during development, and to further our understanding
of adult reasoning on beliefs. Your participation is completely
voluntary, your answers will remain anonymous, and all information
gathered will be kept confidential.

If you have any questions, you can contact Michael Lamport Commons
through email at ***@tiac.net.

This is the link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/DevelopmentofBeliefsNew

[Steve Hayes]

On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:39:50 GMT, Lucas Commons-Miller

Post by Lucas Commons-Miller
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DevelopmentofBeliefsNew

I did the survey, and it begged too many questions.

The authors need to examine their presuppositions, and ask themselves whether
they can assume that those who answer the survey question share those
presupposition, otherwise they might totally misinterpret the answers they
receive.

[Catherine Jefferson]

Post by Steve Hayes
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:39:50 GMT, Lucas Commons-Miller

Post by Lucas Commons-Miller
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DevelopmentofBeliefsNew

I did the survey, and it begged too many questions.
The authors need to examine their presuppositions, and ask themselves whether
they can assume that those who answer the survey question share those
presupposition, otherwise they might totally misinterpret the answers they
receive.

No kidding. :/ I did the survey too. The assumptions seem to be that
people go from "believing" to "not believing" in:

a) Monsters
b) Santa Claus
c) God or gods

Interesting correlations, those. They do have a couple of questions for
those who came to believe in God as adults, but most of the questions
have an underlying assumption that people don't go from unbelief as
children to belief as adults, which made it difficult for me to respond
to the survey. I had to leave several notes in the boxes that asked for
explanations.

Then you get to the *really* interesting part -- part 2. The survey
tells the stories of five or six individuals, all of whom have struggles
with their religious beliefs. The stories all seemed to me to assume
that those beliefs were held from childhood. The five or six different
thought processes were plausible, but covered only a small number of the
possibilities even for somebody who grew up in a religious community and
then came to question it. In each case, the person decides to remain in
the religious community, and subsequent to that decision attempts
suicide, which limits the outcomes even more. The survey then asks
which of them thought in ways you could see yourself thinking.

I wonder what the agenda is with this survey? Maybe they're
psychologists dealing with suicidal ideation in religious people and are
trying to figure out which underlying religious assumptions and beliefs
might be involved? If so, they really need to widen their perspective
considerably and revisit the questionnaire or they won't get meaningful
answers from many who take the survey.


Under His mercy,

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:53:42 GMT, Catherine Jefferson

Post by Catherine Jefferson

Post by Steve Hayes
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:39:50 GMT, Lucas Commons-Miller

Post by Lucas Commons-Miller
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DevelopmentofBeliefsNew

I did the survey, and it begged too many questions.
The authors need to examine their presuppositions, and ask themselves whether
they can assume that those who answer the survey question share those
presupposition, otherwise they might totally misinterpret the answers they
receive.

No kidding. :/ I did the survey too. The assumptions seem to be that
a) Monsters
b) Santa Claus
c) God or gods
Interesting correlations, those. They do have a couple of questions for
those who came to believe in God as adults, but most of the questions
have an underlying assumption that people don't go from unbelief as
children to belief as adults, which made it difficult for me to respond
to the survey. I had to leave several notes in the boxes that asked for
explanations.

They also assumed that people stop believing in God/gods because of injustice
in the world, and continue to believe in God/gods because of justice in the
world.

Also, concerning monsters, Chairman Mao, who I assume was an atheist, said
that "monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed".

He also made frequent reference to "paper tigers" and "bean curd tigers" --
could it be assumed that he believed in the existence of those as a child, and
that he could have said (if he were still alive to do the test) whether he
stopped believing in them when he was 8, 16, 32 or 64?

The test asked if one had "seen" monsters. Chairman Mao said that US
imperialism was a bean curd tiger -- what kind of sense does it make to ask
whether one has "seen" US imperialism, either when one is awake, or when one
is dreaming? Can one "see" abstract things physically, which is what the
designers of the survey seemed to assume?

The designers of the survey seem to assume that human beings think like
computers, and are not capable of abstract or symbolic thought.

Concerning Santa Claus I said that I had not stopped believing in him at any
age, but that my belief in him had changed as I learned more of the history of
St Nicholas of Myra in Lycia.

Post by Catherine Jefferson
Then you get to the *really* interesting part -- part 2. The survey
tells the stories of five or six individuals, all of whom have struggles
with their religious beliefs. The stories all seemed to me to assume
that those beliefs were held from childhood. The five or six different
thought processes were plausible, but covered only a small number of the
possibilities even for somebody who grew up in a religious community and
then came to question it. In each case, the person decides to remain in
the religious community, and subsequent to that decision attempts
suicide, which limits the outcomes even more. The survey then asks
which of them thought in ways you could see yourself thinking.

Yes, and there was no place for questioning the assumptions in that part.

The questions were about the reasoning process of the "helper", though the
stories only mentioned a "religious adviser", not a helper. And the role of
the adviser seemed to be exactly the same in four of the stories -- prayed
with the person. In the other story it was slightly different. The stories
told nothing of the reasoning of the "helper".

Post by Catherine Jefferson
I wonder what the agenda is with this survey? Maybe they're
psychologists dealing with suicidal ideation in religious people and are
trying to figure out which underlying religious assumptions and beliefs
might be involved? If so, they really need to widen their perspective
considerably and revisit the questionnaire or they won't get meaningful
answers from many who take the survey.

They certainly won't get ANY reasonable answers from any who do Part II, as
the questions are all unreasonable. So if they are trying to help suicidal
people, relying on the survey is likely to lead people to do more harm than
good.