semiotic_pirate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
semiotic_pirate) wrote2005-09-28 12:59 pm
semiotic_pirate) wrote2005-09-28 12:59 pm
Entry tags:
Secular societies are safer...
Who would have thought that repression driven religious people would end up displaying more violent tendencies (statistically, not exceptionally speaking). And here we are, being pressured on all sides to get religion, to rediscover/embrace our spirituality. However, when they say spirituality they are really saying be a good Christain Soldier.
If anyone was watching Boston Legal last night, there was a profound bit of information that was put on display. One of the up and coming young lawyers, in a move to impress his female boss (yes he was motivated by sexual desire - preeening, puffing, strutting display, etc.) he put together a tight series of video clips on how often GOD is mentioned in public speeches, the great speeches as well as the not so great speeches that we have heard in our country since the advent of television. It was pretty powerful, and of course in the context he used it helped him sway opposing counsel to settle on more agreeable terms, based on the presumed fact that "ours is a Christain nation. Even though that is fallacy, and all in the room agreed that it was, it was argued that the current perception of the media, the political establishment, and the public was such that to try to bring this case to court would have been (in the words of Bush Sr.) imprudent.
I think that this article has hit the nail on the head - all you have to do is look at what motivated some (if not most) of the worst atrocities in history... Massacres, genocide, persecution, torture, etc... But then you have people like this saying stuff about comparing "apples to apples" because it isn't about humanity in general, no, you have to break it down into a racial segregation. Bullshit. Walk the streets of London, you will see people of all races (and religions) intermingled and coexisting. *major eyerolls*
American statistics look pretty good if you take out the 27% of the population that is black or Hispanic to make it more racially comparable to Britain's population. Blacks are incarcerated for violent crimes at 7.1 times the non-Hispanic white rate and Hispanics at 3.4 times the white rate. Similarly, blacks have about four times as many abortions and Hispanics about twice as many. All these other measures the article cites are worse among blacks and Hispanics as well.
When you do a direct apples to apples comparison of the white working classes in Britain and America, the Brits appear to be falling apart morally (e.g, drunkeness, assault, and burglary), while the Americans are holding their own.
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“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.”
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”
I guess this is the answer (finally) to that old song by Depeche Mode: People are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully?"
If anyone was watching Boston Legal last night, there was a profound bit of information that was put on display. One of the up and coming young lawyers, in a move to impress his female boss (yes he was motivated by sexual desire - preeening, puffing, strutting display, etc.) he put together a tight series of video clips on how often GOD is mentioned in public speeches, the great speeches as well as the not so great speeches that we have heard in our country since the advent of television. It was pretty powerful, and of course in the context he used it helped him sway opposing counsel to settle on more agreeable terms, based on the presumed fact that "ours is a Christain nation. Even though that is fallacy, and all in the room agreed that it was, it was argued that the current perception of the media, the political establishment, and the public was such that to try to bring this case to court would have been (in the words of Bush Sr.) imprudent.
I think that this article has hit the nail on the head - all you have to do is look at what motivated some (if not most) of the worst atrocities in history... Massacres, genocide, persecution, torture, etc... But then you have people like this saying stuff about comparing "apples to apples" because it isn't about humanity in general, no, you have to break it down into a racial segregation. Bullshit. Walk the streets of London, you will see people of all races (and religions) intermingled and coexisting. *major eyerolls*
American statistics look pretty good if you take out the 27% of the population that is black or Hispanic to make it more racially comparable to Britain's population. Blacks are incarcerated for violent crimes at 7.1 times the non-Hispanic white rate and Hispanics at 3.4 times the white rate. Similarly, blacks have about four times as many abortions and Hispanics about twice as many. All these other measures the article cites are worse among blacks and Hispanics as well.
When you do a direct apples to apples comparison of the white working classes in Britain and America, the Brits appear to be falling apart morally (e.g, drunkeness, assault, and burglary), while the Americans are holding their own.
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“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.”
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”
I guess this is the answer (finally) to that old song by Depeche Mode: People are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully?"