Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

[CaptainObvious]

September 27, 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

[trotsky]

1. LOL, what an appropriate username you have. n/t

[Delphinus]

2. I'm surprised I didn't see this

three years ago.

Glad you posted.

[Jim__]

3. I need more information before I can accept his claim.

The data from the actual study is not included in the article, and claims like:

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

don't really establish anything.

Most of the indicators that are cited in the article use the US as the example of a dysfunctional society. And, it's true that the US is a highly religious society. But, say the US is also a high home ownership society. Does that mean that high home ownership leads to dysfunctional societies? The claim may be true, but the article fails to support the claim.

[patrice]

4. I tried to have a discussion alonng these lines with someone yesterday

I was trying to tell her how concretely damaging Absolutism is. Didn't get very far. I gave up when she said something about how conformity keeps you from being goverened by outside factors. That was kind of an eye-opener for me.

[TlalocW]

5. I wonder if some of it is

Comes from when the religious nutcases believe God is *REALLY* on their side. That attitude can set up a belief system of truly being more special than others in the eyes of God so even if you decide to do something unethical - whether lie about a political opponent or have an affair - it's okay cuz God is your buddy, and He's got your back. When other people do it though, it's of course totally wrong because God is your friend, and he would never hang around with, "those people."

Also, if all you have to do is ask for forgiveness when you do something wrong and then believe God has given it (or you just have to say a number of Rosaries), and you've got a clean slate, then what's the imperative to stay on the straight and narrow considering how easy it is to get a Heavenly break?

Reminds me of a joke about a Catholic Priest and a Jewish Rabbi who were friends, and the Rabbi always wondered what went on in confessional so his friend let him sit in the booth with him. The first person enters and asks for forgiveness and say, "Forgive me Father, for I have committed adultery."
"How many times?" asks the priest.
"Three times, father."
"Go say two Hail Mary's and put $10 in the donation box."
A second person enters and asks for forgiveness for adultery.
"How many times did you commit this sin?" asks the priest.
"Three times."
"Say two Hail Mary's and put $10 in the donation box."
After the second person leaves, the priest turns to his friend and says, "See how easy that is? Would you like to give it a try?" The Rabbi agrees.
A third person enters and asks for forgiveness, also for adultery.
"How many times did you do this?" asks the Rabbi.
"I cheated one time, Father."
"Well, go and do it two more times," says the Rabbi. "We're having a special this week, 3 for $10.00."

Now on the surface, it seems to be playing into the Jewish stereotype about being overly concerned with money and finances, but I also think it's kind of poking more fun at Christianity/Catholocism as the Rabbi is led to believe that his friend's belief system lets people off pretty easily.

TlalocW

[cosmik debris]

6. One claim from that article is hard to dispute

"The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator."

[charlie]

8. Yep. And testing that hypothesis,

that Belief is necessary for a successful society, was the purpose of the study. Refutation of the claim was its conclusion, not "religion is bad," as the article makes it out to be. It does note evidence of correlation between religiosity and disfunction and says it's important to explore the possible linkage in further studies. But that didn't stop the Times from going with the SOCIETIES WORSE OFF lede. Stupid paper.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

[cosmik debris]

9. Here are interesting quotes from the Results section

"...the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds..."

Hmmmm?

"...the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard..."

Double Hmmmm?

"...rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular developed democracies..."

Eeeeww!

"...Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped in the developed democracies (Abma et al.; Singh and Darroch), but rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline has been more modest..."

Correlation does not equal causation, but the observations are very interesting.

[charlie]

10. The 6 to 300 bit

really jumped out at me. 6 is enough to make me wince, but THREE HUNDRED?

We're really fucking kids up with our abstinence/contraceptive, damnation/responsibility mixed messages.

[Evoman]

7. Correllation does not equal causation.

I don't have access to the study, so I don't know how they control for so many variables: the history of the country, the education level, the homogeneity of the civilization, etc.

Maybe countries that are succesful just have less religious people because people turn to religion when things go to shit?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love the conclusion. And this does tell us that religious isn't NECESSARY for success.....but other than that, there is not much we can conclude from these kinds of studies.