C'mon, you already knew it deep down

[miriam_e]

A new study which checks out a whole range of indicators in about 20 western countries proves that religion damages society, and not just slightly -- it directly correlates with everything from murder and shorter lifespan to teen pregnancy, abortion, and broken marriages. All the things religion says it helps, it actually worsens. The more religious a society is, the more socially dysfunctional it is.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lnl/

Gregory Paul, who presents his findings, says that he is surprised that nobody had put the figures together before. They are all there, readily available, for anybody to see.

The good news is that religion is declining worldwide. This has been evident for some time. As people become smarter and more knowledgeable it becomes more difficult to use superstition to control them.

Religion masquerades extremely effectively as good morality, but it is clearly a very bad thing. Let's hope its claws are extracted from humanity's psyche soon enough to avoid the next round of religious wars.

[additional: link to a short piece about it in the Times in UK: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html ]

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Very few things are unrelentingly evil. I know a lot of good people who are, unfortunately, religious. That doesn't mean I think they are the enemy, though I would be careful of them in extreme situations, because for most religious people the idea ends up being more important than people and they might have a "moral" battle with themselves, but if they thought you'd crossed some religious morality you'd lose out even if it wasn't immoral from a humanist standpoint. That is probably the reason for the finding that marriages break up more among more strongly religious people. More secular people have longer, less rocky relationships.

The church points to the help they provide for the poor, but secular organisations and individuals do too. They down blow their own horn about it so you rarely hear about it, and they generally don't have an agenda. I know you say the church doesn't necessarily ram religion down the throats of those they helped, but the trappings are always there. They say "grace" over the meals they give away, they invite people to their sermons, they often even give sermons while the people are eating, they give out pamphlets about the church and religion at the helpings and have signs up. I have been involved in secular help for the poor and the source of the help is almost never advertised; it is just help, quite literally with no strings. I don't think I've ever seen religious organisations deliver help without any strings at all. Remember that their payment is in souls, and that is what they want. Generally they are even happy to admit that, thinking that that is quite alright.