Responding to Persecution

[JohnnyLingo]

from the next line:

Correlation isn’t necessarily causation....

...in a 2006 study, the Clemson economist Todd Kendall found that a 10 percent increase in Internet access is associated with a 7 percent decline in reported rapes.)

Haha... so correlation isn't necessarily causation, but check out this correlation that totally implies causation, everyone!

Go Science.

[DU Ute]

No one here has said porn is unproblematic.

And no one here has said guns are unproblematic.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Haha... so correlation isn't necessarily causation, but check out this correlation that totally implies causation, everyone!

Go Science.

A few questions:

1) Do you not find it plausible that porn might provide an outlet for someone who would otherwise be inclined to sexual violence?

2) What do you think is the reason that sexual violence has dropped 85%?

Before you discredit the Clemson study, you might want to check out what statistical methods they used. I am guessing it is not as simplistic as you suggest.

[JohnnyLingo]

A few questions:

1) Do you not find it plausible that porn might provide an outlet for someone who would otherwise be inclined to sexual violence?

2) What do you think is the reason that sexual violence has dropped 85%?

Before you discredit the Clemson study, you might want to check out what statistical methods they used. I am guessing it is not as simplistic as you suggest.

I'm just pointing out that if I walked in here using the "correlation = causation" fallacy I'd be skewered. I realize there is most likely truth in the study, but as you said, most things are not as simplistic as people suggest.

It's like climate change. Our climate is so unbelievably complicated we can't accurately predict whether it will rain or not this weekend, yet we take one variable (CO2) and decide we've figured out how our atmosphere and planet have worked and will work forever.

Just bugs me.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'm just pointing out that if I walked in here using the "correlation = causation" fallacy I'd be skewered. I realize there is most likely truth in the study, but as you said, most things are not as simplistic as people suggest.

It's like climate change. Our climate is so unbelievably complicated we can't accurately predict whether it will rain or not this weekend, yet we take one variable (CO2) and decide we've figured out how our atmosphere and planet have worked and will work forever.

Just bugs me.

Either way, that 85% number is stunning. And it would be nearly impossible in light of that statistic to argue that porn leads to sexual violence (as we were once led to believe).

[JohnnyLingo]

Either way, that 85% number is stunning. And it would be nearly impossible in light of that statistic to argue that porn leads to sexual violence (as we were once led to believe).

Fair, but then there's the fact that statistics are never bulletproof. Studies are never ironclad. People lie, scientists lie, mistakes are made, numbers are added incorrectly, etc. etc. I'm not saying the study was performed in bad faith, but I'm not willing to accept that number on faith alone.

[I.J. Reilly]

I bet if LA were online he'd be proud of how his off-handed remark about porn has sparked a renewed interest in a thread about persecution. Guessing, I would say that there is some correlation, if not causation at work here. As in, since the LDS church is against porn we receive more persecution.

[UtahDan]

I'm confused. Whose expectations disappointed?

The husband's. Isn't that what you said?

[TripletDaddy]

And no one here has said guns are unproblematic.

That is not true. You can do your own searches. But no wonder you responded the way you did.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I know yall make fun of me for constantly saying that people should read, but a lifetime of constant reading has convinced me that reading is the solution to ignorance and prejudice (not that the two are inextricably intertwined).

???

Are you somehow under the impression that the people here don't believe in the value of reading?

[LA Ute]

Porn doesn't kill marriages. People kill marriages.

Exactly right. It's not the porn, it's the "addiction" to it. The same is true of drugs and alcohol. 12-step programs help people deal with their inability to cope (the first step is to admit that their lives have become unmanageable because of that inability). My point to Nikuman was that hard-core porn is very available, 24 hours a day, on the Internet. So is lots of bad stuff. Our kids can arrange to get marijuana within 5-10 minutes on any California high school campus. The harder stuff is not much harder to get. So it's just tougher to be a teen-ager these days.

[LA Ute]

I bet if LA were online he'd be proud of how his off-handed remark about porn has sparked a renewed interest in a thread about persecution. Guessing, I would say that there is some correlation, if not causation at work here. As in, since the LDS church is against porn we receive more persecution.

I've been kind of surprised that the thread took off on the porn meme. (Your comment about a porn-persecution correlation leaves me a little puzzled, BTW.)

I'm not too interested in the possible relationship between an increase in porn and an increase in sexual violence. I am more focused on the spiritual problem. My friends who are psychotherapists tell me that when men (and some women, believe it or not) have a serious porn issue, it affects their brains the same way alcohol and drugs do. The response to sexual stimuli is different, the way they view their spouses changes, and so forth. It's just a relationship-killer when it gets too progressed.

On the spiritual front, I think this is the definitive address on porn, by Pres. HInckley in 2004.

[DU Ute]

I've been kind of surprised that the thread took off on the porn meme. (Your comment about a porn-persecution correlation leaves me a little puzzled, BTW.)

I'm not too interested in the possible relationship between an increase in porn and an increase in sexual violence. I am more focused on the spiritual problem. My friends who are psychotherapists tell me that when men (and some women, believe it or not) have a serious porn issue, it affects their brains the same way alcohol and drugs do. The response to sexual stimuli is different, the way they view their spouses changes, and so forth. It's just a relationship-killer when it gets too progressed.

On the spiritual front, I think this is the definitive address on porn, by Pres. HInckley in 2004.

I agree. I think people who are only worried about the correlation between porn and sexual violence are missing the big picture.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I agree. I think people who are only worried about the correlation between porn and sexual violence are missing the big picture.

Who is "only worried" about that?

[LA Ute]

Who is "only worried" about that?

I didn't see your comments as suggesting that you see it that way at all.