A recent study has found strong correlations between how strong a country's belief in Christianity is and how high their levels of violence and teen pregnancy are. (The survey wasn't about Christianity, per se, but it focused on mostly Christian and formerly Christian nations, with the exception of Japan). One result from the study:
A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all secular developed democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows (Figure 2). The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the secular developed democracy norm.
And for those who find reading studies boring, you can read this somewhat opinionated summary.
It is possible that part of the problem here is that those who "believe" often look down on those who don't. I and many of my friends back in the US can readily testify to this. It should go without saying that when you have a self-righteous group looking down on those who don't share their views, societal tension is a natural result. But if you're tempted to respond to this, read the study first, regardless of whether or not you agree with me.
It is possible that part of the problem here is that those who "believe" often look down on those who don't.
There are oozing buckets of smug to go around.
One of my personal favorites is the absolutely condescending pat on the head to our pasty-white, combed-hair, clean-shaven red state brothers with button-up shirts. "It's okay. Your braaaaanes are brooooooken, you poor mindless sheep suckling on the big glass teat of truly awful God-is-my-girlfriend pop music and fat televangelist drippings. You don't know any better. Let big daddy rationalism make it alllll better."
You don't want to go to those parties, 'cuz of rationalism's tagalong little brother, The Scientific Method, who always introduces himself with scary caps you can absolutely just hear, so you know he's totally not joking. This guy has a killer party trick, he holds out a single playing card and goes around trying to get someone, anyone, to pick any of it and even then he usually gets it wrong a few dozen times before he catches on to the fact that it's like a three or a diamond or something. Leaves you in stiches, really.
(Once, he caught up to me in the lavatory at a concert and was going on and on about this amazing recipe for primordial soup like the primitive earth and he was getting it -- not the soup, you know -- way too close to my shoes and I finally said, "What, you have a time machine, baby?" and he all of a sudden had this hurt look in his eyes and I was all set to give him the two sentence rundown of falsifiability and empirical observation, but then he said "Well obviously you can extrapolate backwards because we're here having this conversation" so then I grabbed him by the lapels and shoved him way back up high against the wall and said "That's the watered-down anthropic principle in disguise, you filthy knob of a priori materialism" and punched him in the head and washed my hands and went back to my seat. 'cuz he had to learn sometime, right?)
Anyway, another time I was curious, so I went to the Portland Atheist Meetings in this classy little bar downtown in the Pearl and just sat in the corner while they ordered drinks and had a grand old time. When the first round came, someone proposed a toast: "I don't see any god around here, so I guess we still win!" and they all laughed and drank and yucked it up. I went over and said, "You know, what if there's a god hiding just down the street, maybe around the hospital or something, or like maybe in that dumpy place on 82nd and Sandy, 'cuz I didn't see any of you check there or anything." They told me it was none of my business and clearly they weren't moving to get up when their #12 martinis were on sale at happy hour for $6.
I think we can all defend the lack of intellectual rigor in the face of such a delicious bargain, in the Pearl District no less.
Re:EPISTEMOLOGY HITS FOR 4004 POINTS! YOU DIE! mor
Ovid on 2006-08-20T20:46:42
You know, that was probably the most kick-ass reply I've received in years. I'm humbled
:) Re:EPISTEMOLOGY HITS FOR 4004 POINTS! YOU DIE! mor
chromatic on 2006-08-20T21:20:04
Thanks! I don't know why people say philosophy is boring. You mix it up in a nice tasty satire-flavored cake batter, and I can snack on it all week long.
Oh thank god it was satire...
Alias on 2006-08-20T22:08:27
... because sometimes I miss these things.
The trouble for me is that your reply was so close to the sort of typical character assasination I hear when I accidentally fall for the baited and get sucked into a debate on religion that you threw me off there for a second.:)
Re:Oh thank god it was satire...
chromatic on 2006-08-20T23:11:07
Don't get me wrong; I really would poppler off and punch The Scientific Method if it cornered me in the bathroom with dime-bag philosophy wrapping the hipster's new clothes.
Re:EPISTEMOLOGY HITS FOR 4004 POINTS! YOU DIE! mor
sigzero on 2006-08-20T21:02:02
WowRe:EPISTEMOLOGY HITS FOR 4004 POINTS! YOU DIE! mor
djberg96 on 2006-08-21T01:15:24
Chromatic meets Jack Kerouac, eh? Only a little stranger.
Re:Correlation != Causation
Ovid on 2006-08-20T23:31:52
Agreed. In fact, the study made it clear that while there were strong correlations, they did not engage in regression analysis to determine the root causes because, in part, this is very complicated and well beyond the scope of the initial study. They were merely noting that there is a strong correlation with a nation's tendency to be religious and having higher homicide rates, higher STD rates (particularly amonst adolescents), higher abortion rates and higher teen pregnancy rates. These problems appear to drop as the percentange of a country's believers drop.
In short, while we can't posit that the strong belief in a diety is responsible for these societal ills, it's suggestive that such belief does little to curb these them. Moreover, the popular arguments in America that secular societies are a license for chaos and immorality seem refuted.
Admittedly, as an American who's watched the American religious right turn into some pseudo-Christian Taliban and having been physically assaulted because I don't believe in god, I freely admit that I have an emotional attachment to this issue. This means that it's very easy for my personal bias to creep in (more accurately, barge in). Thus, any evidence to the contrary is welcome.
Re:Correlation != Causation
chromatic on 2006-08-21T00:20:06
Admittedly, as an American who's watched the American religious right turn into some pseudo-Christian Taliban...(Psst, your bias is showing.)
Re:Correlation != Causation
hfb on 2006-08-21T06:09:31
Just find a remote place to hide as when this 'armageddon' the religious freaks are gunning for in the ME comes and they realise they've only managed to kill millions without the trumpets and the angels coming for them, maybe then some sanity will prevail. Certainly not before then.Re:Correlation != Causation
sigzero on 2006-08-21T14:39:54
Wow, talk about not knowing your material.Re:Correlation != Causation
pudge on 2006-08-28T23:04:51
They were merely noting that there is a strong correlation with a nation's tendency to be religious and having higher homicide rates, higher STD rates (particularly amonst adolescents), higher abortion rates and higher teen pregnancy rates. These problems appear to drop as the percentange of a country's believers drop.
The study did not show that at all. Unless I am mistaken, it did not show any nation's problems dropping over time as their belief dropped.
I think you mean that a country with lower numbers of believers generally had fewer such problems, but it cannot bee extrapolated that a lower level of belief for a given country would result in fewer such problems.
In short, while we can't posit that the strong belief in a diety is responsible for these societal ills, it's suggestive that such belief does little to curb these them.
Well, no, it's not. For it to be suggestive of such a thing, it would have to do a much better job at taking other factors into consideration; maybe there are other factors that would drive up these ills even more if not for religious belief. In short, it would need to try to show causation, else it is suggesting nothing.
And it also doesn't take many other very religious nations into account, for example, Mexico. Indeed, it does not include any South American country.
Moreover, the popular arguments in America that secular societies are a license for chaos and immorality seem refuted.
Well, no, that's not true either, since this study looks only at a subset of societal ills.
This is data to add to the discussion, but it does not refute any such claim; not that I would agree with such a claim to begin with, and I see no justification in the Bible for making that claim, and it is rare I see people make it (although Kathleen Harris in FL seemed to attempt it recently).
There's no suggestion in the Bible that I recall, that a society will be significantly better off the more it believes in God -- at least, not in the New Testament.
Admittedly, as an American who's watched the American religious right turn into some pseudo-Christian Taliban
It's just as true for others to say that they've watched the American left turn into a group of liberty-hating communists.
I think both widely expressed characterizations are way off the mark.
and having been physically assaulted because I don't believe in god
I have been physically assaulted for my belief in God.
Both the right and the left (and many who purport to be in between) seem to me to have all the same problems with demonizing the people they disagree with, and trying to control the lives of others. The right wants to prevent you from smoking pot, the left wants to take away your guns. The right wants to make smut illegal, the left wants to make hate speech illegal. The right wants to use your taxes for religious charities, the left wants to use your taxes to perform abortions. The right wants government-sanctioned prayer in schools, the left wants all mention of religion out of schools.
Of course, I am generalizing. Not everyone on the left believes all those things; and I am on the right, and believe none of those things I attributed to the right.
I just can't see this as one side being worse than the other. I'm biased too, but how the right demonized Clinton really opened my eyes -- especially when Bush took office and I saw the same thing happen to him, from the other side -- to how foolish most of us (me included) are.
