tinyurl.com/buhsw -> www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
The Times and The Sunday Times electronic paper The Times and The Sunday Times electronic paper Britain September 27, 2005 The Times 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 re search published today. According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unneces sary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problem s The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to pr ovide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such a s Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US c onsider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheis m and amorality. Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates o f violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The b enefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its spi ritual capital. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the U S may actually contribute to its ills. The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academi c 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 democraci es. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the develop ing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so. Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data f rom 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 worlds only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations w ere the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in ad olescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout demo cratic countries. The US also suffered from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the s tudy suggested. Mr Paul said: The study shows that England, despite the social ills it h as, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indic ators, 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, e arly mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added. Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrin a He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studie s suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. I s uspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal per formance 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 scient ifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy major ity support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious bel ief, Mr Paul said. The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently beli eve in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal d isaster is therefore refuted.
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