irani@brahms.udel.edu (Jennifer Irani) (05/11/91)
The American Lifestyle: By the age of 70, the average American will have spent: -3 years in education -6 years in eating -11 years working -24 years sleeping -5.5 years washing and dressing -6 years in walking -3 years in reading -6 months in church DO YOU WANT TO SPEND YOUR LIFE OR INVEST IT?! In one year, the avg. American will have spent: -$146 on fastfood -$64 dollars on soda -$34 on entertainment -$15 on missions (less than 1% of the income of American Christians goes toward foreign missions) IF EVERY U.S. CHURCH MEMBER WERE TO LOSE HIS JOB AND GO ON WELFARE, AND GIVE 10% (TITHE) OF THE WELFARE CHECK, GIVING WOULD INCREASE BY 30%!! Jennifer Irani irani@brahms.udel.edu class of 1991 !!
kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie) (05/19/91)
Jennifer Irani posted a large set of statistics; she did not provide the source, the data collection method, or the anticipated error. There are *lots* of statistical fallacies, and I get suspicious whenever I read things like this: > By the age of 70, the average American will have spent: > -5.5 years washing and dressing That ".5" sure looks authoritative, but I doubt that these numbers are good for better than +- a full year -- which means that the ".5" is just fluff. Additionally, your chart mentions only one religious activity, going to church. It does not list time spent in prayer, reading religiously-oriented material, doing volunteer work, or any of the other ways that people live out their religious beliefs. What I am trying to get at is that I don't think we can learn *anything* useful from the chart you provided. In particular, some of the statistics look questionable (if not completely unknowable), and the implied conclusion (that many Americans waste their lives) seems a bit hasty. Statistics are just numbers, and numbers can be used to count anything. But that doesn't mean that what you're counting is what's important. kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu Darren F. Provine ...njin!gboro!kilroy "Statistics is the science of inferring the obvious and the false." -- David M. Tate
smittie@beach.csulb.edu (Mark Smith) (05/23/91)
The GIGO factor prefails!! An aside-- I always find it interesting that when some group or organization wants evaluate what we spend our lives doing, they always include this bogus "religious activities" section. In most cases, not all, they only count time spent in or at church. I am very confident in my relationship with Jesus Christ and I find church to be one of the least important things I do in a week. I go to church but I often miss and if one were to look at my church attendance one might draw the conclusion that I don't put much stock in my faith. This won't be dead wrong. However, the other conclusion that could be drawn is I don't put much stock in what goes on at church. This would be fairly accurate. Stats always intrigue me but, unaccompanied, they *never* impress me. Smittie