Comments on: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/ The Official Blog of OkCupid.com Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:49:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.7 By: Definer http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-32958 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 02:01:41 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-32958 re: Desertphile
Your assertion that Atheists are all Agnostics is incorrect.
Atheists do not believe in gods of any kind. They believe there is NO higher power.
Agnostics are unsure whether there is a higher power, and believe you can’t prove it either way, therefore there could be a god and they are open to the idea.
Therefore, by definition, NO atheists are agnostic as they are quite sure there is no higher power.

re: Stoney
I’m inclined to agree with you except for your suggestion that Atheism is not a belief. In some people who have never thought about it, this is certainly true. However once you’ve been forced to consider the existence or otherwise of a higher power, you have effectively formed a belief, and at that point Atheism becomes a belief. Especially when you consider that a common definition for Atheist is one who *denies* the existence of god.

Excellent article by the way.

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By: nina http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-16321 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:20:37 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-16321 well, i can try and explain the hindu men matching worst with hindu women thing, and this will sound perhaps a bit critical, but I am trying to be totally honest here: as a half indian american female that was raised hindu, I get a few messages a week minimum that seem like they are directed solely at my pigmentation/religious background rather than me as a unique person. These messages don’t mention religion or the fact that I’m indian or hindu per se, but they are from guys who write a rather formulaic message that possesses no evidence of having actually taken an interest in the words contained in my profile. Upon reading the profiles of these men, they seem to have absolutely nothing in common with me besides the fact that we both possess a bit more pigmentation and were raised hindu. Not sure if it’s because dating/marriage culture is very different in India and when they get to this country they don’t quite know what to do or say, or if it’s just that there are a few of them out there blanketing the brown female population with formulaic emails in the hopes of gleaning a few responses. I have also heard the pickup line “you are indian?” so many times that when I hear it I now find it annoying (surely you must have noticed SOMETHING about me besides the fact that I’m brown, right?) To be fair, I’ve also gotten some lovely, well thought out messages from hindu guys, but sadly those are far less common. Just a thought.

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By: elham20 http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-16059 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 01:47:33 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-16059 hi thanks for every thing but how cn i register?

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By: Ganapathy Ajay Korimilli http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-15777 Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:11:10 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-15777 Superb!! I can gladly tell my friends who believe in astrology to read this article.

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By: stoney http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-15535 Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:45:43 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-15535 Atheism isn’t a belief. It is simply the lack of theism/ theos, god(s)/goddess(es).

All theists are atheist with regard to all other superstitions {religions}. An atheist lacks belief in your particular deity{ies} as well.

Amazing how so many theists only have a problem with the lack of belief when their particular brand of delusion isn’t given special treatment.

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By: Desertphile http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-4/#comment-14506 Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:57:55 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-14506 Very interesting. Note that most atheists also consider themselves agnostic—- it’s the same thing.

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By: Paragon19 http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-3/#comment-12818 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:31:41 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-12818 Thank you, over and over again, for the wit you put into these posts. I always get a good chuckle out of them.

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By: Matthew Currie http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-3/#comment-12625 Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:17:33 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-12625 Speaking as an astrologer who actually makes a living at it… and has people come back and tell me that astrology actually WORKS… your dismissal of Astrology based on Sun Signs shows a lack of understanding of how it actually works.

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By: David256 http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-3/#comment-12418 Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:44:39 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-12418 “if two people match each other 69%, what it means is that they are very likely to like each other, based on their own definitions of what makes a person attractive, not ours.” – First of all, 69% is only 9% above average, and since you tweaked the algorithm some time ago to give higher scores to people that answered fewer questions, 69% may still be a very average match.

Second, I found that OKCupid generally doesn’t ask me the questions I want to be asked. For instance, it is very important to me that my mate share some of my interests: video games, sciences, politics, computer programming, altruism, etc. But does OKCupid ask questions about such topics? Only very rarely. Instead it seems like I have been asked an endless parade of questions about my sexual preferences, and while I may put a “low” importance on most of them, their sheer quantity means that my match percentage is biased toward stuff that doesn’t matter all that much to me.

That said, I think OKCupid is the best dating site around and you should all sign up!

(By the way, when submitting a comment without an email address, might I recommend that after showing an error message, you not delete the person’s message when he/she clicks the browser “back” button? I’m using IE if that makes a difference.)

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By: Robert Currey http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/comment-page-3/#comment-11457 Sat, 15 May 2010 13:43:06 +0000 http://blog.okcupid.com/?p=39#comment-11457 Your astrological data shows a surprising lack of deviation. According to sceptics there should be a variation on this type of survey (no matter how large the database) due to people’s knowledge of astrology and their preference for partners of certain signs and other factors like seasonal adjustments. However, since there are no such ‘artefacts’ I can only see two possible conclusions:
1. That the Mayo-Eysenck Zodiac Zig-Zag experiment really does show a correlation between sun signs and extraversion (Mayo, White and Eysenck 1978; Smithers and Cooper 1978). Sceptics claim that this effect disappeared when the subjects had no prior knowledge of astrology, which showed that prior knowledge can nudge a person’s self-image in the direction of astrology (Eysenck and Nias 1982:50-60, Dean 1983c, van Rooij 1999). I tend to agree with the sceptics on this one.
2. Or that someone has tinkered with your data or it is a complete invention to serve your or someone’s world-view. Either you are the culprit or you have been duped and need to go back to check the figures or have them checked by an independent sceptical third party.

Personally, I would not expect a significant deviation on a Sun Sign survey of this kind that supports astrology after adjustment for artefacts. The reason is that while some newspaper astrologers claim that that certain Sun Signs relate better to others primarily to entertain readers who want quick solutions, professional astrologers always assess the success of a relationship on the basis of the entire horoscope which includes the interactions of the Moon sign and the planets.

~Robert Currey

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