Religion in Schools

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Now that you've cast doubt on the original study cited, I'll go back and check the facts again - although possibly not right now as deadlines approach.

Alas, I can't presently access the original JSTOR piece - seems remote access is messed up at the moment. However, in the meantime, here's a report from The Times on another study focusing specifically it seems on developed countries:

From The Times September 27, 2005
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 performance 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 skeptical 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 gonorrhea 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.

“The non-religious, pro-evolution 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.”

Originally posted by whodey
My goodness, look at all this consensus on moral issues. Everyone is against theft and violence, etc. If you ask me, its just a coincidence we all agree.

No - it's human nature, for the fairly obvious reason that societies would fall apart if they allowed widespread theft and violence, etc. The truth is that there is more or less universal consensus about murder and theft but not about, say, eating pork or sleeping with someone of the same gender. We can thus fairly confidently conclude that prohibitions of murder and theft are reasonable, and that dietary and sexual taboos are superstitious.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
No - it's human nature, for the fairly obvious reason that societies would fall apart if they allowed widespread theft and violence, etc. The truth is that there is more or less universal consensus about murder and theft but not about, say, eating pork or sleeping with someone of the same gender. We can thus fairly confidently conclude that prohibitions of murder and theft are reasonable, and that dietary and sexual taboos are superstitious.

I wouldn't categorize not eating pork as moral issue anyway.
I realize that sexual behavior is usually referred to as 'morality', but I see that too as in a different category from morality based on not harming others.
Although there is some overlap, the use of the words 'immoral' and 'taboo' highlights the different groups of 'do not do's.
I might say it is taboo for a certain culture to cross a particular river. I wouldn't say it is immoral. Similarly I would not normally say 'murder is taboo for culture X'.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I wouldn't categorize not eating pork as moral issue anyway.
I realize that sexual behavior is usually referred to as 'morality', but I see that too as in a different category from morality based on not harming others.
Although there is some overlap, the use of the words 'immoral' and 'taboo' highlights the different groups of 'do not do's.
I might say ...[text shortened]... y it is immoral. Similarly I would not normally say 'murder is taboo for culture X'.

Well, I agree with you of course, but a lot of religious people don't, especially if they define morality as "obedience to God's commands".

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Alas, I can't presently access the original JSTOR piece - seems remote access is messed up at the moment.

You can try here:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.18.3819&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Alas, I can't presently access the original JSTOR piece - seems remote access is messed up at the moment. However, in the meantime, here's a report from The Times on another study focusing specifically it seems on developed countries:

From The Times September 27, 2005
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Co ...[text shortened]... held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

Alas, this looks like a poorly analysed study:

1. The US is a very LARGE country with wide regional variations on a host of demographic, social and religious factors. What happens when you look at individual states instead of the just the country as a whole?

2. Where are the controls for income, race, family background etc.?

EDIT: A few other articles that might be of interest:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3692500?&Search=yes&term=%22religious+belief%22&term=%22crime%22&list=hide&searchUri=/action/[WORD TOO LONG]

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3838287?&Search=yes&term=%22religious+belief%22&term=%22crime%22&list=hide&searchUri=/action/[WORD TOO LONG]

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Alas, this looks like a poorly analysed study:

1. The US is a very LARGE country with wide regional variations on a host of demographic, social and religious factors. What happens when you look at individual states instead of the just the country as a whole?

2. Where are the controls for income, race, family background etc.?

EDIT: A few other ...[text shortened]... %2Band%2B%2522crime%2522%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&item=4&ttl=2993&returnArticleService=showFullText

Can you post the names of the studies? Strangely enough I can't open them from those links although I should have jstor access...

Originally posted by Teinosuke
Alas, I can't presently access the original JSTOR piece - seems remote access is messed up at the moment. However, in the meantime, here's a report from The Times on another study focusing specifically it seems on developed countries:

From The Times September 27, 2005
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Co ...[text shortened]... held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

There's the original study, incidentally, rather than the Times paraphrase.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Originally posted by Teinosuke
There's the original study, incidentally, rather than the Times paraphrase.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Portugal a "second world" country? 😕 When did we join the Soviet bloc?

That's a very poor study from a statistical point of view. They just look at basic correlations, so there's obviously a huge problem of ommited variables.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
1. The US is a very LARGE country with wide regional variations on a host of demographic, social and religious factors. What happens when you look at individual states instead of the just the country as a whole?

If you want a graph that focuses on individaul states, then here it is:

http://i.imgur.com/kpb5A.png

It suggests the correlation is fairly strong within the US.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't actually think that religious beliefs are the cause of these crimes. I think that the poor and poorly educated are more likely both to commit crimes and to believe in God, but that these two outcomes are separate.

It's interesting to note the glaring exception to the general correlation between religion and various negative social outcomes within the US is Utah, which has one of the highest levels of religiosity but also low murder rates, a low percentage of the population impoverished, and the top health and contentment ranking. So should we all be Mormons?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
1. The US is a very LARGE country with wide regional variations on a host of demographic, social and religious factors. What happens when you look at individual states instead of the just the country as a whole?

Paul did actually himself raise this question, I now notice, towards the end of his essay, and cited another survey:

"There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002)."

Originally posted by Palynka
Portugal a "second world" country? 😕 When did we join the Soviet bloc?

That's a very poor study from a statistical point of view. They just look at basic correlations, so there's obviously a huge problem of ommited variables.

I think the author is aware of that - his final paragraph comments that further research is needed and this is a provisional study, which points to correlations without necessarily asserting that they are causative:

"The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions?"

These studies don't show that religion is a negative social influence; rather, they show that non-religious societies have some of the best outcomes in terms of quality of life, so that a lack of religion itself doesn't lead to societal collapse.

Having said that, the designation of Portugal as "second-world" does kind of shake my confidence in him!

Originally posted by Teinosuke
I think the author is aware of that - his final paragraph comments that further research is needed and this is a provisional study, which points to correlations without necessarily asserting that they are causative:

"The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding th ...[text shortened]... at, the designation of Portugal as "second-world" does kind of shake my confidence in him!

I agree. And don't take my objections as denial (I'm an atheist, just to clarify), I'm just interested in finding a better study. I'm sure there are several studies out there that did this properly.

Originally posted by Palynka
Can you post the names of the studies? Strangely enough I can't open them from those links although I should have jstor access...

Let's try:

1. Does Religion Really Reduce Crime?
Paul Heaton
Journal of Law and Economics
Vol. 49, No. 1, Symposium: Piracy and File Sharing (Apr., 2006), pp. 147-172
(article consists of 26 pages)
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3692500
Abstract
Considerable research in sociology, criminology, and economics aims to understand the effect of religiosity on crime. Many sociological theories positing a deterrent effect of religion on crime are empirically examined using ordinary least squares (OLS) cross-sectional regressions of crime measures on measures of religiosity. Most previous studies have found a negative effect of religion on crime using OLS, a result I am able to replicate using county-level data on religious membership and crime rates. If crime affects religious participation, however, OLS coefficients in this context suffer from endogeneity bias. Using historic religiosity as an instrument for current religious participation, I find a negligible effect of religion on crime and a negative effect of crime on religion. To further explore the relationship between religion and crime, I examine variation in crime incidence before and after Easter. Consistent with the instrumental variables results, I find no evidence of a decrease in crime following Easter.

2. The Religious Institutional Base and Violent Crime in Rural Areas
Matthew R. Lee
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 2006), pp. 309-324
(article consists of 16 pages)
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3838287
Abstract
Research on the relationship between religion and crime has typically focused on individual religiosity and delinquency, or moral communities and crime at the macro level. This study extends prior research by delineating the sociological implications of a strong religious institutional base, and investigating the ties between the religious institutional base and violent crime across rural communities. Multivariate regression analysis of Uniform Crime Report data on violent crime, Census of Churches and Church membership data, and U.S. Census data circa 2000 reveal that rural violent crime rates on average are consistently lower where there are more churches per capita. This relationship holds net of the overall adherence rates, the presence of civically engaged religious adherents, and the presence of conservative Protestant adherents. Moreover, regional variations are evident, with the South and the Midwest-two highly religious regions of the country-sustaining most of the observed institutional effects.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Let's try:

1. Does Religion Really Reduce Crime?
Paul Heaton
Journal of Law and Economics
Vol. 49, No. 1, Symposium: Piracy and File Sharing (Apr., 2006), pp. 147-172
(article consists of 26 pages)
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3692500
Abstract
Considerable research in sociology, crim ...[text shortened]... highly religious regions of the country-sustaining most of the observed institutional effects.

Forgot to come back to this...

It seems from the evidence we've jointly gathered that

a) the more religious states in the US have higher crime rates than the less religious ones, BUT that the more religious parts of the more religious states have lower crime rates than the less religious parts of the more religious states,

and

b) that the least criminal societies are mostly either highly Muslim or highly secular; whereas Christian devotion often, but not always, seems to correlate with high crime rates (except for Mormonism, if that counts as Christian!).

Seems like this is more complicated than I thought!