quote:Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
quote: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.
Exactly how did they come up with all this? I realize how fundamentalism can lead to some of these, but certainly not a simple belief in a higher power and adherance to a particular religion.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but to state the obvious, this article is, for the most part, just another exploitation of religion(you may agree or disagree with me on this).
posted
Extreme conservatism and fundamentalism does, I think. But spirituality, and reasonable religion, no.... It depends on what kind of creater a person believes in and how they worship them, ect. You wouldn't want people to practice human sacrifices or something.
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posted
katharina - no, I don't, sorry. Obviously the article is rediculous, but I wanted to see what all of you had to say about it.
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posted
The article isn't obviously ridiculous, although it does way overstate the case. The comparions made are more or less accurate, although the suggested causal relationship is not strongly impelled by the data.
The idea that religious people within certain populations (generally western democracies) are in some ways less moral and that their societies tend to be less well strucutured in some ways than non has long been supported by the research. One of the things that this article fails to mention is that the trend is not linear, but rather curvilinear. That is to say that merely comparing the two groups, religious with non-religious, generally produces these results, but if you actually look into different types of relgious, you find that while most religious do have significnatly higher rates on many negative scales than non-religious, there is a minority that performs as well or better than the non-religious.
The problem is not so much religion (if religion is the primary cause, rather than many of the other social factors which generally correlate) as it is certain types of religion. However, as these types of religion are more prevelant, flat comparisons show this as a problem with the entire religious population.
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posted
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Maybe there is more crime in areas where there is also a higher proportion of religious people, but that doesn't mean that the religion is causing the crime. In fact, it's entirely possible that a higher crime rate causes a certain amount of fear among the general public, which in turn causes a higher number of people to seek answers and comfort from religion. Or it's possible that the two are completely unrelated and the correlation exists by pure coincidence.
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I think that religious thought is at the foundation of inquiry. That is, belief in god is a byproduct of the human tendency to look for causes. Maybe the reason that we as a race are so unable to give up mysticism is that it's a fundamental element of intelligence.
Since the two are so closely integrated, I don't think it's really possible to say that belief in God is any more damaging to society than any of the other products of inquiry; science and technology, for example. Science and technology have certainly unleashed some pretty serious damage to society, and the planet as a whole. But on the whole, the intent was a positive one, and we've yet to see whether the damage is greater than the benefit.
But I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
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posted
Even within the U.S. the areas where religion is obstensively most valued often have around the highest rates of prejudice, violent crime, spousal and child abuse, divorce, and a host of other social ills.
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posted
I think the very idea of heaven and hell is damaging. Why worry about not killing people when you know there is an afterlife. Why worry about apologizing to people, when they can hear you after they die.
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posted
I think I should point out that there is actually over 50 years of research put into these questions and that the answers that have resulted are generally much more complex than the simplistic assumptions that most people seem to put out.
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quote:I think that religious thought is at the foundation of inquiry. That is, belief in god is a byproduct of the human tendency to look for causes.
I thought that a belief in God was the reason people stopped looking for causes.
Birth of the universe? God caused it First life forms? God caused it Evolution? God caused it The reason why everything works? God caused it
And on like that. It actually ends intellectual discourse. Not always, but mostly.
Why do the planets revolve around the sun? BLASPHEMER! The sun revolves around the earth! To the jail with him!Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:I think the very idea of heaven and hell is damaging. Why worry about not killing people when you know there is an afterlife. Why worry about apologizing to people, when they can hear you after they die.
Because of the belief that if you don't worry about it, you go to hell?
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Everybody knows that they're not going to hell. It's always the other guy. After all, I've got my reasons for acting the way I do. The other guy has absolutely no excuse for acting that way.
I thought that was obvious.
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posted
Here's an interesting quote from the study:
quote:Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion.
I find it hilarious (in a way that I support--I'm laughing with him, not at him) that he uses the term "achieving...[a]...culture of life" with regard to secular societies, which is just what the right-wing religious fundamentalist George W. Bush uses in trying to describe his ideal and fundamentalist version of the United States.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I think I should point out that there is actually over 50 years of research put into these questions and that the answers that have resulted are generally much more complex than the simplistic assumptions that most people seem to put out.
And the person doing the study didn't have an agenda at all. Did you read the interview? This person set out to prove that religion was bad, and surprise that's what he found. Starting a 'scientific' study to prove a personal or political agenda is blasphemy of the scientific method.
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posted
I think the very idea of no heaven and hell is damaging. Why worry about not killing people when you know there is no eternal accountability. Why worry about apologizing to people, when it doesn't matter you after they die.
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Did we read the same interview? I read that invterview, and it says (Gregory Paul says) nothing of the sort.
Please point out the language in that interview that makes you feel the author of the study had an anti-religion axe to grind. And please keep it in context; you know us: if you don't, we'll be more than eager to do it for you.
posted
Bao, I fail to see how that touches on anything I said. I specifically mentioned that large amount of other literature and criticized what I saw as major flaws in his conclusion based on these other studies.
From what little I know about this, I'm not overly impressed with the researcher nor his study, but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. As I said, the bare facts that he notes are true and there's plenty of reputable research that is somewhat supportive of what he said.
edit: Also, bias, while a failure to live up the scientific ideal, is rarely completely absent in research. In my own research, I've have some pretty strong ideas (you could call them biases, especially if you disagreed with me). As long as you observe the objective rules of data collection and analysis, your own perosnal beleifs don not invalidate your results. Most researchers set out to prove something. I don't see what he did as "blasphemy" nor do I see it as making it so what he said can be dismissed without addressing it.
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Not everybody who believes in a literal heaven and hell believes themselves immune to hell. It is ludicrous to think that we all do.
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quote:Everybody knows that they're not going to hell. It's always the other guy. After all, I've got my reasons for acting the way I do. The other guy has absolutely no excuse for acting that way.
Those who actually try to live the moral teachings of their religion (and most religions in their core teach morality) look upon this attitude as shallow and misguided. Those who actually try to live the moral teachings of their religion feel that their religion bolsters and strengthens their resolve and desire to live moral lives. These people scrutinize their own behavior and try to improve it while forgiving the mistakes and weaknesses of others.
Considering that most religions doctrinally center around morality, when the people fail to follow it is either due to the failings of human nature or (sadly) error in their teachers/priests/whatever. When a religion in it's teachings seeks to excuse or foster evil behavior, then the religion is evil because it teaches evil.
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quote: GREGORY PAUL: Being a palaeontologist, I've for many years had to deal with the issue of creationism verus evolutionary science in this country.
...
In all the other prosperous democracies religion is much less popular now and evolution is highly accepted. So it's an issue, it's a problem I had to deal with.
...
The way to put it is the United States is the only first world nation that retains rights to religiosity and scepticism for evolution that otherwise are found only in the second and third world.
Having read some of your other threads ssywak I know you'll argue this to the bitter end. I'm really not interested in that. My point is that while all people are biased to some extent, it sounds like this guy is just a little bitter about his work not being taken seriously by all the 'creationists' out there and so he went out and performed a study COMPLETELY out of the area of his expertise that was basically an indictment of religion in this country. You may not see it as biased, but if the shoe were on the other foot and he was an intellectual design proponent that produced a study implies religion causes the prosperity of the United States I suspect you'd be screaming bias, as would I. What really bothers me is that although he uses the word correlation, the comments are from the viewpoint of causation, despite the caveat at the end.
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quote:Considering that most religions doctrinally center around morality, when the people fail to follow it is either due to the failings of human nature or (sadly) error in their teachers/priests/whatever.
I don't believe that this is true at all. Many (I'd say most times) it is at least partially due to the ideas propogated by religions do not fit well with reality. Human beings, beliefs, and the interaction between these two are far more complex than this statement allows.
From my perpsective, religions fail in many cases to encourage "good" behavior not because they are evil or because the people they are teaching to are, but rather because they are mistaken about the nature of humans, in much the same way that they are so often mistaken about the nature of the physical world. And, unfortunately they often lack the epistemology to correct themselves even when they are obviously wrong.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Also, bias, while a failure to live up the scientific ideal, is rarely completely absent in research. In my own research, I've have some pretty strong ideas (you could call them biases, especially if you disagreed with me). As long as you observe the objective rules of data collection and analysis, your own perosnal beleifs don not invalidate your results. Most researchers set out to prove something. I don't see what he did as "blasphemy" nor do I see it as making it so what he said can be dismissed without addressing it.
Of course people are not free of biases, but it's become almost a cop-out phrase for a biased study now. "Well, yeah it's a little biased, but everybody is biased." The scientific method starts out with a hypothesis which had to come from a person with an idea which may have come from a lifetime of experiences and be called bias. All I'm saying is that my impression from the paper and the interview is that the guy had an 'axe to grind' as someone put it, therefore to me his conclusions are suspect. As I mentioned before, if a priest conducted a study on how religion is the reason for all things good about this country, I would also take very little stock in that study.
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posted
To Squicky: You see, I'd chalk that up to the interpreters and teachers of the religion teaching incorrect information. Being religious, I believe that when true religion is taught, there is no disparity with reality. That this is often not the case is lamentable.
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posted
Frm my perspective, that's one of the big epistemological problems. You start with the assumption that you are right and thus any poor results must be because people are doing it wrong.
edit: This also pretty much leaves you with no other methods to deal with conflicting information besides the medieval "set it or them on fire" method or the "la la la, I can't hear you" anti-intellectual method so popular in contemporary America.
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posted
Assume that of me if you wish. As for myself, I scrutinize what is taught at the pulpit (any pulpit, including those of my own church) against what feels right to my own sense of morality. If something doesn't set right, I tend to be suspicious. I figure this is what we all must do--go by our own inner compass and try to be honest with ourselves. This is by no means limited to religious matters and the religious.
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quote:I think that religious thought is at the foundation of inquiry. That is, belief in god is a byproduct of the human tendency to look for causes.
I thought that a belief in God was the reason people stopped looking for causes.
It is a reason some people stop looking for causes. That is, they believe they already know the cause, and cling to that "Truth." But I'm talking about the foundations of human intelligence, you're talking about artifacts that linger from an early attempt to explain the unexplainable.
Most of it is now explainable, but it conflicts with the answers that have been accepted for millenia. MY point is that since the attempt to understand resulted in the concept of God, it is two sides of the same coin, and therefore difficult to separate.
quote:
Birth of the universe? God caused it First life forms? God caused it Evolution? God caused it The reason why everything works? God caused it
And on like that. It actually ends intellectual discourse. Not always, but mostly.
Why do the planets revolve around the sun? BLASPHEMER! The sun revolves around the earth! To the jail with him!
And yet the Catholic church did and does maintain and support astronomic and other scientific studies. It's a double edged sword, as they say, when they attempt to understand the universe, but they don't like what they learn as a result. Human emotions are complex enough that the logic behind certain behaviors is far too remote to be noticed.
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posted
BQT, of the three statements that you quote from the study's author, only one indicates any bias: "...it's a problem I had to deal with..." As far as "bias" goes, I'd give that maybe a 2 out of 10. Other than that, I'm just seeing hypotheses...
To state "...the issue of creationism versus evolutionary science..." is perfectly correct. It's an issue. And he's had to deal with it. No bias, unless you need there to be some. I didn't realize that scientists would feel bitter that their work wasn't being taken seriously by creationists. It's like me feeling bitter that a bunch of first graders aren't taking my Laplace transformations seriously.
Bev, MPH,
You misunderstand me. I never said that I believed that anyone felt that they weere "immune" to hell. But think: do you know of anyone who really thinks that they are going to hell? Not that, "If I do this, or if I don't do that, I am going to hell," but "I really, truly will be going to hell when I die."
And how many people do you know that you know full well that they are prime candidates for the eternal flames, but who themselves think that they are (somehow) OK?
That's more in keeping with my original question.
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posted
bev, I feel like perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I am not talking about morality in and of itself, but rather human nature and specifically how to effectively teach people.
I'm not trying to say that religions are trying to teach people to be violent or get divorces or what have you (actually I am saying that, to an extent, about teaching prejudice and authoritarianism). Rather, what I'm saying is that it seems likely that religious people are more likely to do these things due to flaws in the worldview that their religion teaches and in the way they go about teaching.
For example, the abstinence only programs try very hard to get kids not to have sex, but they fail pretty miserably because they are founded on extremely innacurrate ideas of human nature and how teaching is accomplished.
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I think, perhaps, we are fairly well in agreement here. "God" as an answer is just one of the answers that humankind discovered in its search for knowledge and understanding.
My personal bias is that it ("God") is a dead end, and that there are other directions still worth pursuing (including both science and philosophy).
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quote:I think the very idea of heaven and hell is damaging. Why worry about not killing people when you know there is an afterlife. Why worry about apologizing to people, when they can hear you after they die.
Because of the belief that if you don't worry about it, you go to hell?
Even then most religions offer some form of repetence. Why worry about doing harm now, when I can repent later?
Also the heaven and hell argument is to me the greatest cause of war. It allows mothers too not feel so bad about sending their children off to die. It keeps the masses calm why they are slaughtered and their leaders sit back and give the orders.
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posted
Huh. I think that my church does a pretty darn good job of getting teens to abstain, considering the norms. Of course not all abstain--we do have raging hormones. But the difference seems pretty significant.
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quote:My personal bias is that it ("God") is a dead end
My perspective: If one is always trying to better understand reality and how God fits into it, there is always searching, inquiry, and growth.
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posted
bev, Will it help to get you to consider what I'm saying if I stipulate that I'm talking about all other religions besides your obviously perfect one?
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posted
I don't know enough about the success of other religions. And I think the end of your statement is rather inappropriate.
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The conclusion -- that religious belief causes social ills -- does not at all follow from the data.
One problem: he doesn't examine people who do or don't profess what he calls religious belief! He instead considers *countries*. There are billions of believers and at least millions of nonbelievers; but he reduce the sample space to about 180 (the number of countries), in a sea of confounding factors (climate, government, GDP, and an amorphous thing called "culture") that he doesn't try to remove from the calculation (nor could he, with so few examples). There is no *way* to get statistical significance in such a small sample set, and no way to predict the causality in such a complex system.
Next, he (or at least the journalist) fails to understand correlation.
If A correlates with B, it does not mean that A->B. Maybe B->A. Or maybe both are caused by C.
For example, maybe people in these countries are religious because they're surrounded by hoodlums and they're scared.
Or maybe secularism and low crime rates are both caused by some aspect of being European.
Or maybe when people have more personal freedom, they're more likely to want a Higher Power OR to commit crimes, but not both.
The explanations are legion; this data does nothing to help us select one.
If we wanted to determine what effect a particular religion has on rates of violence ("religion" is too vague; the Maya religion, for example, encourages torture), we could survey a large group of people, in the same country, at the same income level, of the same ethnic group. Then do it again for different sets.
This might give us very different results. (Actually, IIRC, it's been done, and it showed that in the USA, churchgoers are less likely to commit crimes, have children out of wedlock, etc. Even that can't establish causation. Maybe they're relatively moral because they're in the church; maybe they're in the church because they're relatively moral; maybe both spring from something else.)
posted
I have yet to meet anyone that has adopted religion because they are scared of surrounding crime. I have more often seen people doubt G-d's existence because the crime exists.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The article isn't obviously ridiculous, although it does way overstate the case.
I think if the article is indicative of the real analysis, it's utterly ridiculous. The author assumes away anything that doesn't agree with his presumptions by saying it's in the noise, or due to seasonal fluctuation, or statistically insignificant, without presenting any reasonable reason to think so. I found the article, from a logical point of view, ridiculously flawed, and the study, if it is accurately depicted by the article, ridiculously carried out.
quote: The comparions made are more or less accurate, although the suggested causal relationship is not strongly impelled by the data.
Not only is it not strongly impelled, it is completely absent. The author says as much, but then writes as if he's forgotten what not doing a regression analysis implies. Again, the guy seems clueless as to how to do a good analysis. And I don't think the tools he's using, the surveys he's relying on, are at all useful for obtaining the sorts of results he's looking for. It's just the wrong data.
quote:The problem is not so much religion (if religion is the primary cause, rather than many of the other social factors which generally correlate) as it is certain types of religion. However, as these types of religion are more prevelant, flat comparisons show this as a problem with the entire religious population.
Do you have links to these other studies and what types of religons are considered?
(BTW, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you; I hope this post doesn't sound accusatory or adversial. I'm just remarkably underwhelmed by this guy's analysis and was surprised you weren't more dismissive of it.)
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posted
Senoj, I honeslty don't see any major problems with the study except for my previously noted objection to the neglect of the classic curvilinear relationship. however, that was in response to the article written about it and journal article doesn't merit that criticism as it is beyond it's scope.
The journal artcile does not actually strike me as objectionable. The author's writing and method all seem within the bounds of responsibility. I wonder what are your specific problems with what he wrote?
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