An article in the times cites a study showing that high levels of religion “lead” to murder, abortion, promiscuity, and suicide. (I suspect it’s actually correlation, but wow, I wonder if those results will be replicated).
grabbed from an
Getting a word in edgewise
Allow me to repost this please. 😉
Go wild
haha, i should send that to my mom. seriously, i’m not sure how solid this “research” is, but it’s interesting nonetheless. i would guess there’s a strong correlation between inferior schools, religiosity, and various social ills. i don’t know that you can pinpoint high levels of religiosity as a cause, i’d be more inclined to believe it’s a symptom. i would also guess that the less homogenous a country, the more likely one is to find really high levels of underperformance on social indicators.
Are they suggesting that things don’t always turn out perfectly for everyone when people are obsessed with impressing their invisible superheroes in outer space?
Without reading the study, this is no different than an article that says ‘intelligent design’ is the hip new thing in science.
I’m inclined to agree with the article, but then it’s no secret I think religion is ridiculous.
The full study, which I’ve just spent thirty minutes skimming, has some data to back its claims, but it’s not very deep. It would be nice if there was more research on this, but I doubt that’ll happen.
Well, I’m especially suspicious if their main source for data on the religious countries is the US. I was posting it mainly as a funny, rather than as a serious point. To the extent that it’s accurate it’s not useful. “Religion is bad for you, so drop all that god nonsense, and start listening to scientists,” is hardly going to be well recieved among the people who “need” to hear it.
I remember too well what it was like to be devout to want to take that away from someone else or to believe that I could. Scientific data probably mostly sways people already inclined to listen to science more than to religion. I suspect that that set isn’t the primary source of deeply religious houligans.
Now, helping people reconcile science with their pre-existing worldviews, I’m all down with that. *shrug* Maybe if I took the time to _read_ the study I’d have a basis for my opinions. =)
Well, we’re pretty much in agreement on this. It’s an interesting conclusion but the study they used to get there isn’t very interesting, and it’s not very deep. I’ve read much better papers. My assumption is that their audience already agrees with them. There’s little in there to sway anyone that wouldn’t already believe this.
It’s very “the secular socialist democracies in western europe are doing things better socially than the rich and corrupt murder-happy god-fearing citizens of the US.” The trouble is that it seems like they’re looking at the extremes (best/worst cases) and not the actual mean state of “well-being” as their points of comparison.
Eh, either way. It’s an interesting position, and it would be nice if there was a way to more easily quantify “good” and “bad” in this context.
Interesing correlation: I would like to know more about the techniques and the research, as there isn’t much on that. It’s hard to see whether or not the results could have been prejudiced by the researchers. That said, the conclusion sounds about right to me: the desert religions seem so out of whack with modern human nature that I’ve always been wary of those societies that are so heavily influenced by them.