12 replies to this topic

[Pham Nuwen]

[...]

[18] 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 (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S.,
is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the
most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost
always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a "shining city on the hill" to the rest of the world
is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to
the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular
factors. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of
evolution with high rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human
evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are
usually the least dysfunctional. None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is
experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly religious U.S. is an
outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from less theistic but otherwise socially comparable
secular developed democracies. In other cases, the correlations are strongly graded, sometimes
outstandingly so.
[19] If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more
secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly
beneficial to national cultures would be supported. 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, proevolution
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. The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan,
France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. 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. Contradicting these conclusions requires
demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a
similarly large body of data – a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.
Conclusion
[...]

Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health
with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous
Democracies

[Joseph_Dantes]

That argument works if you ignore race and IQ as causal factors.

[Pham Nuwen]

That argument works if you ignore race and IQ as causal factors.

Race and IQ certainly play a major role (some would argue a deciding role), but it might be the case that the correlation holds when you control for those factors. I have certainly seemed in my own experience how religious convictions have allowed individuals to justify moral hypocrisy (behave like a swine now, right everything by repenting in old age or on the deathbed. Out of curiosity, how would you account for Texas's teenage pregnancy rates (if I am not mistaken, teenage pregnancy and STD rates are highest in states that champion abstinence-only sex "education") and the murder rate of Portugal? Also, as an aside, according to Jensen's g Factor religiosity and social conservatism are themselves inversely correlated with IQ.

Edited by Pham Nuwen, 24 November 2010 - 06:14 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

Trying to implicate religion by looking at the state or country level stats of Texas or Portugal is an exceptionally terrible argument, even by internet standards.

The OKCupid profile analysis data showed that black women are by far the most religious group in America. I won't bore you by citing the black illegitimacy rate. You must control for demography.

The relevant measure would be frequent church attenders vs not, controlled for race at the minimum, and probably SES too, given the zeitgeist.

[cranquar]

Religiosity strikes me as a very interesting word. It seems to represent the present stage of many believers of God that I think of as wannabees,(Those Who Want to Be). Thus they have an inner desire to identify themselves as believers, however they fall short. The scriptures give notice to them as those who hear the word, but because of the worries, and pleasures of the world...they do not bear fruit, and in some cases don't even take root.

In the world of gangs, wannabees are those who walk around dressed in gangland coded clothing, and talk gangland slang, but they pack no power...they have no muscle, they are powerless. So it is with the population where religiosity thrives. The powerlessness, lack, frustration, anger, hatred, jeolousy, and acts of violence increase because the potential of making victims of the powerless wannabees increases with each day. When the people who say they believe in God begin to truly seek Him first for that which He desires to give them first, (not what the world first offers them), they will embrace His desire to give them an eternal life, with the life force which independently and effectively halts the progression of victimization, pain, and suffering for each person. When the people of God stop being so powerless, and begin to embrace the power that operates through them, then the stats of violence will decrease among them.

Nevertheless, I do agree that a society that holds simply to love one another, be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving of one another, does not require traditional church rituals in order to live with civil order. Love and kindness is the (natural) way we are given and intended to live with one another, right? And for those who seek to live outside of the law of love, they can be brought to justice, not just by means of the society, but also by their own self-destruction. Medical research is abound with studies of how negative thinking, feelings, and expressions result in nothing but trouble to the human body (inclucing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and bodily injuries), however these studies also show that those filled with thoughts and expressions of thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation; they heal faster, live longer, and enjoy healthier lives. We may all need to repent from forms of negative thinking, such as perpetual fearful, angry, or depressing thoughts, if we want to begin to achieve the goal of immortality.

[Ben]

How trendy it is for pseudo-intellectuals to be condescending towards religion. Though, rudderless emotional flotsam will always be pulled whichever way the current flows.

Edited by Ben - Aus, 10 December 2010 - 03:37 PM.

[firespin]

It does seem there is a connect between religion and crime, violence, and poverty, both in History and Now.

1) I wondered could there be a connection that the country Italy, home of the headquarters to the largest christian religion in the world (Catholic) is also the birth place and home to one of the most violent criminal organizations in the world. (The Mafia).
Though Italy is 96% catholic, 80% of Italian businesses pay Mob/Mafia tax. The mafia has a lot of influence in Italy and even their president have (or had) a Mob connection.

2) The more religious a country in Africa is, the higher amount of crime or poverty.

3) The middle east is home to some of the most radical religious terrorists. Many are also poor.

4) Also in the past when the US was more religious slavery was allowed, higher amount of crime and lawlessness, etc. Even the massacre of Native-Americans was thought to be good being christians of then believed they were "Satan's children/Antichrist" or primitive. The same for most of Europe when it was deeply religious.

Edited by firespin, 16 December 2010 - 06:54 AM.

[Pham Nuwen]

Trying to implicate religion by looking at the state or country level stats of Texas or Portugal is an exceptionally terrible argument, even by internet standards.

I am working with limited data. The information we have thus far - from an 800,000,000 strong sample - shows that religiosity is definitely positively correlated with social ills. Unfortunately, the data set does not control for race, IQ, or SES. Fair enough. Race, independent of IQ, is probably not a very relevant factor given that we see a positive correlation between religiosity and social ills in many prosperous European democracies that are 95%+ white. Would you agree with me that if we were to find data set - for instance, Portugal - where a relatively high IQ Caucasoid population has aberrantly high rates of religiosity and social ills that this would seem to imply that religiosity and social ills may be correlated even when racial and IQ factors are taken into account?

The OKCupid profile analysis data showed that black women are by far the most religious group in America. I won't bore you by citing the black illegitimacy rate. You must control for demography.

You're citing a dating website but think that my data is unrepresentative?

The relevant measure would be frequent church attenders vs not, controlled for race at the minimum, and probably SES too, given the zeitgeist.

I am fairly certain that when IQ is controlled for the correlation between religiosity and social ills will decline significantly (but I do not think that it will disappear altogether). On the other hand, religiosity, like field dependence, extroversion and addictive behavior is part of an entire nexus of psychological traits that is inversely correlated with IQ. Put simply, I doubt that a devoutly religious person with an IQ of 140 is any more likely to commit a crime as an atheist with a commensurate IQ, but there are going to be far more atheists with such IQs than religious people.

On the other hand, I might be completely wrong; religion might have absolutely no correlation with social ills when relevant factors are controlled for. The prudent thing to do in the absence of more information would be, I suppose, to suspend judgment. If you have any more data germane to the issue - preferably from peer-reviewed sources - I would appreciate it if you could post it.

Edited by Pham Nuwen, 18 December 2010 - 06:25 AM.

[Pham Nuwen]

[M]ost of Europe [had high crimes] when it was deeply religious.

That's very true. Two to three hundred years ago Europe - then still deeply religious - had violent crime rates that were simply astronomical by today's standards.

[firespin]

The OKCupid profile analysis data showed that black women are by far the most religious group in America. I won't bore you by citing the black illegitimacy rate. You must control for demography.

You're citing a dating website but think that my data is unrepresentative?

Pham Nuwen, dont pay Joseph_Dantes any attention, he is just one of the resident trolls on this forum. He likes to say things that catch people's attention (Whether it make sense or not), and if he succeeds, he will then try to spiral the thread into a pointless arguement.

Edited by firespin, 18 December 2010 - 07:26 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

I am working with limited data...

It's possible you've simply never been exposed to competent arguments from the culture war's opposite side.

"The information we have thus far - from an 800,000,000 strong sample - shows that religiosity is definitely positively correlated with social ills."

Rural areas are more religious and conservative in America than big cities, which trend liberal and less religious and more NAM (non-Asian minority). Crime rates are much higher for the cities than the rural areas. That's why looking at state level data is worthless, much less country data. Also, greater black religiosity is a major confounding factor, since blacks are 1 SD more prone to violent crime across multiple Western nations. You can look up black religiosity in multiple places, it's no secret. OKCupid was merely a particularly spectacular and graphic example. Moreover, there's nothing wrong with using the profile word analysis of a major dating site to compare characteristics of different American racial demographics, particularly when the conclusion is already well known. I suggest you go to the survey and look for yourself at the words that crop up most frequently for each race/gender pairing; the results are extremely psychologically insightful. Oftentimes qualitative data tells a story better than purely quantitative data.

Your argument re crime and religiosity has already been conclusively disproven by UK prison data as cited by Vox Day, which shows that "no religion" atheists are imprisoned at a rate 4x higher than UK Christians. Since the UK has a much lower NAM population, this data avoids the US racial confounding problems. It is also the only data available for this particular metric, since in the US no useable religious self-identification survey for prisoners exists. Here's the link: http://voxday.blogsp...umiliation.html

You are completely incorrect in your assertion that race, independent of IQ, probably is not a very relevant factor. Firstly, I have no idea what you mean, since race is not independent of IQ. Secondly, you are obviously unaware of La Griffe du Lion's research showing the blacks have about a 1 SD higher violent crime rate, and latinos somewhere between whites and blacks. Again, here are the links: http://www.lagriffed....com/prison.htm
http://www.lagriffed...s.com/fuzzy.htm

I would agree with you that religion and SES are inversely correlated, however you clearly have the causation reversed. Religion revives during depressions and atrophies during booms. This is basic Elliott Prechter socionomics. Skirt lengths also vary by boom and bust, but they do not cause either.

"Portugal - where a relatively high IQ Caucasoid population has aberrantly high rates of religiosity and social ills"

Portugal is IIRC relatively poor by Euro standards and has a strong Arab admixture from its period of Moorish conquest, which alters both the complexion of its inhabitants and their genetic stock.

You have yet to establish that IQ is negatively correlated with religious belief except in a racial sense. You also have yet to establish that religion is positively correlated with social ills, outside of race. There are plenty of social ills in a-religious Russia, Cuba, China and North Korea. Also, you do not seem to consider demographic collapse a social ill, although it certainly bodes ill for the survival of a civilization, historically speaking.

Your argument clearly relies on a dishonest distinction. You are counting self identifying atheists, when of course any minority abstract self-identification requires a high IQ to begin with. You ignore the far vaster number of no-religion individuals who populate the lower IQ regions of atheistry. Yet you cite the low crime rate of high IQ self-identifying atheists as evidence against religion. The proper comparison would be the religious versus the non-religious.

"That's very true. Two to three hundred years ago Europe - then still deeply religious - had violent crime rates that were simply astronomical by today's standards. "

You clearly have no idea that the robbery and murder rates in Elizabethan England were orders of magnitude lower than today's. Unless you're counting wars and genocides as violent crimes, in which case the 20th century still far outstrips previous records.
Firespin, if you have something to contribute regarding the paper excerpt in the OP, please share. Otherwise, the adults are speaking.

[Tanatana]

Religion does not breed these things, it is human nature that does. Religion is just an excuse. If one eliminated religion, these things would still be there. Look at China. People are imperfect, that is root. Some people, well most people, don't want to admit that. Religion is a vehicle to transport one through life. It is up to the person driving the vehicle to responsibly drive to where they are going or to recklessly drive like they are drunk and cause bodily harm.

[Alex Libman]

Bad use of statistics (not to mention spelling).

Religiosity (assuming only traditional religions, not new ones like socialism) has a strong correlation with fertility, which is a good thing in of itself as at present rates an atheistic society loses half of its natural population with each generation. High fertility obviously leads to a younger population, each of whom have had less individual attention from their parents, which in turn translates to higher rates of all the bad things you've mentioned. But, hey, having a turbulent youth is a small price to pay for being alive.