God Bad For Society
“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.”
This is the basic conclusion of a study carried out by social scientist Gregory Paul whose findings were the subject of an article by Ruth Gledhill, the Religion Correspondent of The Times. The oft-repeated crap about moral behaviour, kindness, clean-living and generally good conduct coming from God has been shot down many times and this study just rubs more salt in the wound.
Read the full article here. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
posted by Geo at 2:09 am
3 Comments:
The only problem is there are too many extenuating circumstances that prevent this from being conclusive or even legitimate. Using these methods, one can say that a black man is more prone to crime and will always, inevitably, be that way. You can spout off facts and heresay about your viewpoint but each one can be faced with a legitimate counter-point. For example, looking from a societal viewpoint, the minority of a group, if being viewed on moral grounds, could, theoretically, be more cautious in these areas, while a majority-ruling moral group would not have to be so inclined. Also, one might want to look at the fact that most people will say they are of a certain belief, only because it is in the majority.
The only way to truly test your theory is to put an atheistic theocracy into power and create a nation that has atheists as the majority. The closest to this is Poland, although Poland still does not have athiests in the majority, as far as I know. Also, to compare this to America is foolhardy because America is of an entirely different breed of societal structure. If this were not true then, according to your theory, India would be even worse than America. In fact, India is on an economic climb and has resisted conflict on a huge level, compared to it's peers.
I think the mistake you are making is that you are believing that religion structures what society it belongs to when it is really the other way around. Also, we are both educated people here. If you are going to use another person's information, use stats,not simple opinions.
By the way, to sort of answer your question from before. I am currently not going to college, as I am waiting to go into the Army as a journalist. When I do go to college, I plan on majoring in Sociology. Also, you didn't read all of Gregory Paul's reasoning there. He also states that his experiment is flawed (In less un-flattering words), I theorise, because of the exact reasons I said.
In the USA, black people in prison vastly outnumber whites, I'm aware that one can "say" it, but I'm not not "saying" it, I don't need to! It is is simply a fact!
If you want to convince me of anything, show me evidence. I try hard to avoid ad hominem attacks but I see you don't, so please explain your howler, "atheistic theocracy", seems to me like a perfect contradiction in terms!!
Yes, America is certainly a strange mix, it has some forward-looking intelligent people and has produced a few great scientists and thinkers. It also has a high percentage of uneducated people and more than a few who still believe that the Earth was created literally in six days by a guy who lives in the sky! Just yesterday, I saw a lady from Georgia proudly proclaim that on TV!
I don't know what you mean by "my theory". Your point about religion and societal structure is lost on me. Don't accuse me of using other people's opinions; I reported upon Gregory Paul's study because it resonates with many other studies that reached similar conclusions.
I am capable of providing my own information and unless I'm talking philosophically, you can bet it will be backed by evidence. I suggest you try this approach yourself.
This will be my last post on this subject because it doesn't really seem to have a purpose. I didn't mean to insult you with my comment about you using Gregory Paul's quote but the fact is it wasn't a study, or at least a study using facts. It was an opinion that he was able to produce with legitimacy after looking at historical events.
Religion is plagued by the idea that if someone does not believe in their belief, they are damaging their world. You believe this. You believe that religion is damaging the world and that your way would be better. If enough people are like-minded and willing to unite in an effort to spread their belief and influence the world, there will be fringe members of this movement or belief that will perform radical and terrible acts. I'll look up a couple of studies tomorrow to show what I am talking about. I can't get them right now, because I need to get some sleep. As such, this won't be my last post. My next one will be.
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