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 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.”
Uh, right.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, of Toward Tradition, tears this faulty study apart piece by deserving piece.
Now, in one of the best examples of wrong-headed averaging, this week the London Times gleefully reported on a new study according to which, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
[The study] is a willfully dishonest distortion of America’s reality. It is also a distortion of the 'non-religious, pro-evolution' Europe that gave us both Communism and Nazism, the killers of over 100 million innocent humans.
How do I reconcile an America of these undeniable problems with an America which is the most Christian country on earth? I do so in the same way that back in the 18th and early 19th centuries I would have reconciled an America that believes slavery is evil with an America using the sweat of slaves. It was really two Americas then, and it is two Americas now. We resolved it then by terminating slavery with the War Between the States. We are resolving it now with another civil war. Happily not one fought with guns and knives but one fought with sermons and speeches, and with books and articles, and ultimately with votes on Election Day.
It turns out John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. He was just confused about which Americas they really are. Here is Rabbi Lapin's conclusion:
The truth is that if religious America were its own country, its crime rate, its illegitimacy rate, and all other indicators of trouble would be only a tiny fraction of those figures for England, Sweden, France, and Germany. If secular America were also its own separate country, its indicators of hopelessness would be completely off the scale and vastly outpace the same figures for most of Europe. Viewing us Americans as just one country and averaging all the figures together still makes us look only a little worse than other countries. America is pulled down by its dysfunctional secular half.
How desperate that half must be to conceal the evidence of its failure by dishonest averaging.
How fervent must be the faith of secular fundamentalists that they prefer the disease to the cure.
2 comments:
The Never-Ending Debate!
Wouldn’t it be great is someone could come up with a cure for stupidity. With just one treatment we could eliminate 99.9% of the world’s problems.
A social “scientist” named Gregory Paul has published a “study” in the “Journal of Religion and Society” which purports to show that there is a correlation between religiosity and social ills. Just what the world needed: more stupidity to further muddy up the on-going debate between legitimate scientists and religious fanatics.
First, no one should be allowed to use the word “scientist” in their title unless they have a firm understanding of mathematics and are capable of interpreting the statistics they generate. This effectively eliminates all sociologists and psychologists. These pretenders obviously have not mastered even basic math and have no understanding of the scientific method. Their jumping into the debate with faulty interpretation of questionable statistics only adds confusion. The religious fanatics will capitalize on this “study” by a “scientist” to further discredit their opponents.
Second, the debate has enough stupid players already. On the one hand we have fools who ignore all evidence that disagrees with their preconceived ideas, no matter how convincing it may be. On the other hand, we have arrogant scientists who should know better than to argue with these close-minded dimwits.
GP states that in the US, “the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution.” How did he determine this? Did he rely on a survey? Does he not realize that most Americans are conformist, who would claim to believe in a creator simply because they think that is the popular thing to do. He certainly didn’t monitor church attendance because most people don’t attend regularly. Perhaps he just listened to our very vocal preachers and politicians: a couple of groups who wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the face.
A more plausible explanation for the high rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide in the US is the aforementioned tendency of Americans to conform to what is currently popular. People, especially teens, are heavily influenced by movies and television, and one need only view some of the offensive offerings of the media to see why we have high STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide. The growth of drug activity and gangs in our cities explains homicide, and juvenile and early adult mortality. Suicide is a byproduct of the increasing stress of urban life. All of this is the result of our compulsion to conform.
On the other hand, perhaps someone already has come up with a cure for stupidity: nuclear war. We may end the debate after all.
"First, no one should be allowed to use the word “scientist” in their title unless they have a firm understanding of mathematics and are capable of interpreting the statistics they generate. This effectively eliminates all sociologists and psychologists."
I would ammend this to say that incapability of interpreting statistics eliminated most, not all, sociologists and psychologists. A couple of my Psychology professors were fanatics about proper research methods and especially proper interpretation. So there are two psychologists that I would allow to use the word "scientist."
You're so right in your analysis of GP's stupidity (or perhaps willful blindness) about the implications of his "study." The best thing to come out of this study is the endlessness of the opportunities for critique and otherwise ripping it to shreds.
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