[lbo-talk] religion bad for society

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Tue Sep 27 17:58:31 PDT 2005


Well, this is a little bit silly. I mean, I'm assuming religion is as much a symptom as a cause. In otherwords, religious countries are religious because living in them is crappy and people escape to religion....having no other means to remedy the crap.

But this would be more convincing if the high rates of murder/STDs/ etc were measured in the devout population rather than in the pop as a whole, since the devout could argue that the rates are high because the nonbelievers are especially sinful.

Joanna

Doug Henwood wrote:


> [original paper at <http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html>]
>
> Times (London) - eptember 27, 2005
>
> Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
>
> By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
>
> 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.
>
> "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."
>
> Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used
> data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other
> research bodies to reach his conclusions.
>
> He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide
> and teenage pregnancy.
>
> The study concluded that the US was the world's only prosperous
> democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least
> devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates
> of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher
> than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from "
> uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and
> adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
>
> Mr Paul said: "The study shows that England, despite the social ills
> it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most
> indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than
> America."
>
> He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared
> with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian
> countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing
> murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and
> abortion, he added.
>
> Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane
> Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of
> different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to
> social ills. "I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by
> the poor societal performance of the Christian states," he added.
>
> He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if
> the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God
> scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not
> enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in
> religious belief, Mr Paul said.
>
> "The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum
> that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens
> ardently believe in a moral creator.
>
> "The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience
> societal disaster is therefore refuted."
>
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