2perfection:
Large-scale surveys show dramatic declines in religiosity in favor of secularization in the developed democracies. Popular acceptance of evolutionary science correlates negatively with levels of religiosity, and the United States is the only prosperous nation where the majority absolutely believes in a creator and evolutionary science is unpopular. Abundant data is available on rates of societal dysfunction and health in the first world. Cross-national comparisons of highly differing rates of religiosity and societal conditions form a mass epidemiological experiment that can be used to test whether high rates of belief in and worship of a creator are necessary for high levels of social health. Data correlations show that in almost all regards the highly secular democracies consistently enjoy low rates of societal dysfunction, while pro-religious and anti-evolution America performs poorly.
Premiss 1: The population of the US tend to believe in a creator and not in evolution.
Premiss 2: The US has high levels of ‘societal dysfunction’ (what a wonderfully
broad term!).
Premiss 3: Some other countries have different belief trends.
Premiss 4: These other countries have lower levels of ‘societal dysfunction’.
Conclusion: There is an identifiable causal relationship between belief trends and ‘societal dysfunction’.
Sorry, Perfection, but wherever these guys studied logic, they should go back and ask for a refund.
Apart from the glaring failure to isolate factors, even if there is a causal relationship, it could run in the opposite direction: religious belief rates are likely to be higher
because of social upheaval.
Source article (watch yourselves…its painful)
moses.creighton.edu/JRS/toc/current.html
The ‘article’, really little more than a short essay with some charts added, is a poor excuse for social science, pursuing an obvious ideological agenda in its attempt to find data to ‘support’ a conclusion. The most glaring methodological error is utter lack of any attempt at rigour: no effort is made to
isolate ‘factors’ in order to
accurately identify their effects. Were it submitted to me in an
undergraduate course, I would possibly give it a C+, for effort.
A little time in the local library will reveal the well-documented fact that any universalised ideological system naturally tends to reduce ‘societal dysfunction’, i.e., cultural variation. Religions are such ideological systems, but so are political beliefs, scientific beliefs, philosophical beliefs, etc. Any collection of ideas which propagates itself via discourse works in the same manner, just so long as it can achieve ideological hegemony. The People’s Republic of China is a great example of what happens when no ideological system has hegemony: feudalism, corruption, and extremely high levels of crime.
My personal favourite was this:
“A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane)”.
This is interesting, considering that homicide rates were not actually collated until in European countries before the middle of the nineteenth century (q.v. Barbara T. Gates,
Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories, Princeton UP, Princeton, 1988).
now I think about I read an article that showed a correlation between theism and raod safety. Devout jews we more dangerous pedestrians believing god would protect them. I wish i could source it.
There are numerous examples of this: people with an ideology which presents a positive afterlife tend to care less about death. The Vikings valiantly fought to the death in the ‘knowledge’ that, in doing so, they would inspire the Valkyrior to carry them off to Valhalla.
