Social benefits of religion?

[Feck]

Topic split from here: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 5&start=50 Parts of the post by Seraph should be read as satire, as it related to the thread it originated in - Charlou


In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

[The Atheist]

In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

Your premise is refuted with just the one example of new Zealand. It is one of the most secular countries yet has crime rates similar to USA in many parts.

You'r logic is impeccabl[ly flawed].

Instead of checking out murder and suicide rates, have a look at Sweden's rate of child institutionalisation.

[klr]

In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

Your premise is refuted with just the one example of new Zealand. It is one of the most secular countries yet has crime rates similar to USA in many parts.

You'r logic is impeccabl[ly flawed].

Instead of checking out murder and suicide rates, have a look at Sweden's rate of child institutionalisation.

Have a look at Ireland's during "the Catholic years". Read any of the public reports (available on-line) on just what happened, and how the Catholic Church was complicit from beginning to end by direct action, inaction, and by cultivating beliefs and social norms that prevented people from speaking out, or even wanting to.

[Hermit]

In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

Here we were wallowing blissfully in a fact-free zone, until you blundered in here with references that might just pollute this idyllic state of affairs. Get out of here, cunt. :pissed:

Actually, I was meaning to thank you. I was looking for those references just a couple of days ago. So, thank you.


You're still a cunt, though!





and possibly a troll.

[Feck]

I'm sorry I don't know what came over me (go on giggle ) must be the lack of alchohol in my blood stream recently .

You do all have my heartfelt apology . I shall return to post pictures of the Forums best looking dog, Youtubes of Heavy Metal (that most of you never click on)and generally misspelt ungrammatical ramblings .

[charlou]

I'm sorry I don't know what came over me (go on giggle ) must be the lack of alchohol in my blood stream recently .

Come and have a drink with me, good man


On the post in question, I too thank you for the references you gave. They provide evidence that contradicts the notion that religion is necessary for morality or quality of life, even suggesting the opposite may be true.

[Hermit]

On the post in question, I too thank you for the references you gave. They provide evidence that contradicts the notion that religion is necessary for morality or quality of life, even suggesting the opposite may be true.

Speaking of morality, Reader's Digest conducted an experiment, 'losing' 1100 wallets in a variety of countries and counting how many were returned. Sure, the sample rate was on the low side, and the results a bit uneven, but keeping those limitations in mind, this tendency was discernible: The higher the rate of atheism the better the chances of having lost wallets returned. Extrapolating on this, one could say that atheists tend to be more honest than theists, and I think that honesty increases quality of life.

P.S. This amused me:

In Mexico, at least two apparently devout Christians who kept our wallets made the sign of the cross after picking them up and peeking inside. The cash, they must have decided, was heaven-sent.

[maiforpeace]

On the post in question, I too thank you for the references you gave. They provide evidence that contradicts the notion that religion is necessary for morality or quality of life, even suggesting the opposite may be true.

Speaking of morality, Reader's Digest conducted an experiment, 'losing' 1100 wallets in a variety of countries and counting how many were returned. Sure, the sample rate was on the low side, and the results a bit uneven, but keeping those limitations in mind, this tendency was discernible: The higher the rate of atheism the better the chances of having lost wallets returned. Extrapolating on this, one could say that atheists tend to be more honest than theists, and I think that honesty increases quality of life.

P.S. This amused me:

In Mexico, at least two apparently devout Christians who kept our wallets made the sign of the cross after picking them up and peeking inside. The cash, they must have decided, was heaven-sent.

Would you mind posting the text of the link - it says it's an attack site, and all I could find on Google were digests of the Reader's Digest article.

[Hermit]

Would you mind posting the text of the link - it says it's an attack site, and all I could find on Google were digests of the Reader's Digest article.

Your anti-virus program seems a little overzealous.

FROM THE PAGES OF READER'S DIGEST


FINDERS KEEPERS

Walking along, minding your own business, you see a billfold on the ground. You pick it up. Some photos inside, a card or two with ID. Hmm, and a nice wad of bills too. So what do you do? The right thing, or …?


Well, Reader's Digest set out to discover just what people would do. First in big cities and small towns around the United States, and then in Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America, editors of the magazine dropped temptation in the path of unsuspecting people. We "lost" more than 1100 wallets to see just how many would be returned. Each contained up to $50 in local currency, but also a name and phone number so that the finder would have no trouble returning the billfold-presuming the finder wanted to return it. We left the wallets on sidewalks and in phone booths, in front of office buildings, discount stores and churches, in parking lots and restaurants. Then we sat back and watched.


The results were … fascinating.


All told, 44 percent of the wallets were taken up, never to be seen again. From one country to another, though, the results varied widely. The gold stars for honesty have to go to Norway and Denmark, where every single wallet was returned. (Do they even bother to lock doors there?) Scandinavian countries, on the whole, put the rest of the world to shame. As did New Zealand and a couple of places in Asia-South Korea and Japan. But watch your stuff in Argentina and Italy. And as for Mexico-well, tough luck if you lose your wallet there. In most Mexican cities, barely any billfolds were returned.


How did the United States fare? Not bad: almost seven out of every ten wallets were returned. That put us solidly on the list of pretty-honest countries, alongside Canada, Australia and India.


Of course, cities and towns within the same country often varied widely as well. (One quick tip: relax in Seattle but keep an eye out in Atlanta.)


So what does all this say about human character? Plenty-at least when it comes to those who wore halos. In each place, we talked with people to find out why they returned our wallets. Throughout the world, across diverse cultures, it boiled down to a few common themes:


They Learned It at Home


Took the High Road


Norway 100%

Singapore 90

Australia 70

Japan 70

U.S. 67

U.K. 65

France 60


In Weimar, Germany, some of the residents weren't exactly paragons of virtue: eight of the ten wallets we dropped there simply disappeared. One of those returned, though, was spotted by eight-year-old Jacqueline Geier while she was riding her bike. After pointing out her find to her mother, Ingrid, the two of them quickly decided it was not theirs to keep. "When I grew up, times were rough and we needed every pfennig," Ingrid said. "But my parents were very honest, and I've tried to bring up my three children the same way."


Mary, a little girl in a pink floral dress, found a wallet on a bench in a Seattle amusement park. She ran to her father, Yong Cha, who immediately handed it back to her. "You must take this to someone who can help find the owner," he said. The nine-year-old took her dad's hand and they went off to find the park office. "Honesty is the most important thing a child can learn," Cha said.


So if the power of example is important, what do we make of these others? In the chic resort town of Lausanne, Switzerland, a smartly dressed woman in a cape and stiletto heels was walking hand in hand with her daughter. The woman stooped to grab our wallet. With the young girl looking on silently, she pocketed the find. We never heard from her.


Another wallet was spotted by a boy out shopping with his mother and sister in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Mom quickly stuffed the wallet into her baggy pants, grabbed both children and hurried to catch a bus. And then there was the woman who pulled her car up short of the entrance to Fulham Palace, once the residence of the Bishops of London. Her son jumped out and snatched the wallet. Back in the car, the woman picked through it carefully before driving through the palace gates. She never got in touch either.


Matters of Faith


Zulhijah Binti Sahar, a 20-year-old woman running a fruit stall in Kajang, Malaysia, wasn't exactly getting rich, but she didn't waver for a minute. "Being a Muslim, I'm aware of temptation and how to overcome it," she said.


Like Sahar, many who handed back our billfolds cited their religious beliefs. In the lobby of Taipei's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, we left a wallet on top of a pay phone. H. C. Chiu found it, and promptly took it to the reception desk. "It is my duty to do good work," said Chiu, a devout Buddhist.


Lena Kruchinina, a governess in the Russian city of Vladimir, heeded one of the Ten Commandments after she found a wallet on the floor of a drugstore. As she handed it to the pharmacist, she told us: "Several years ago I could have taken it, but now I am completely changed. As they say, 'Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor's.'"


Which isn't to say that sticky-fingered people are necessarily godless. In Mexico, at least two apparently devout Christians who kept our wallets made the sign of the cross after picking them up and peeking inside. The cash, they must have decided, was heaven-sent.


It Could Happen to You


Hit the Highway


Holland 50%

Germany 45

Russia 43

Philippines 40

Italy 35

China 30

Mexico 21


Time and again, the world over, those who looked like they could use $50 often turned it in, while many people who appeared affluent enough took the money and ran. Consider Frasher Hajzeraj, an Albanian who fled the fighting in Kosovo and was working as a restaurant waiter in Switzerland. After handing in our wallet, he said, "I put in long hours and I know how hard one must work to earn that much."


Indeed, survivors of tough times seemed to respond most often with empathy, and a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God honesty. When she found a wallet, for instance, Shannon Hill was a college student in Greensboro, N.C., working three jobs to pay for tuition, food and rent. Her first thought: "I could sure use this money." But then she saw a picture of a baby in the wallet, and changed her tune. Somebody else needed it more.


Several of those who returned wallets had memories of losing one themselves. Andele Boomsma, a young man with a punk haircut, picked up a billfold in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden. "As a child, I lost a wallet in an amusement park," he said. "It was never returned." Now he could spare someone else the same hassles.


But the most poignant example of empathy came from Brian Toothill, a Canadian who found one of our wallets in a telephone booth in Saskatoon. "Your wallet was down low in the booth, and I thought it might have belonged to a handicapped person in a wheelchair," he told us. "They'd need the money more than I do, wouldn't they?" Well, maybe not. At the time, Brian was out of work, and minutes before returning our wallet he had been searching for bottles and cans he could recycle for cash. Now there's a guy with his values in place.


A century ago, Oscar Wilde observed that the one thing impossible to resist is temptation. Now that we've put his axiom to the test, we're happy to report that Oscar was probably too cynical. Okay, maybe not by much, but you do have nearly a six-in-ten chance of getting your wallet back. For the rest of you, those who kept the cash, you've got our number-and we know where you live.

[Rum]

My response to the OP is quite simply that there appears to be no link either way between 'general' morality and socially responsible behaviour and religion and/or atheism. This is good news for atheism of course.

[BrettA]

My response to the OP is quite simply that there appears to be no link either way between 'general' morality and socially responsible behaviour and religion and/or atheism. This is good news for atheism of course.

Of course I agree, but that doesn't stop the (unfounded) perception of the reverse from the theistic community in their typical self-righteous manner:

“Society might allow different Christian sects to exist but atheists, he [John Locke] wrote in his Letter Concerning Toleration, could not be tolerated: their oaths and promises were worthless because without the fear of divine punishment they had no reason to keep them. Locke’s conception of the social fabric – that people trust one another because they know others will keep their promises from fear of divine punishment – has been held throughout history and is still widely believed today.” - Nicholas Wade; The Faith Instinct, Penguin 2009 Pg. 192-193 (released in November, 2009, AIUI).

The point around blatantly advocating intolerance is especially galling it seems, as with:

"Tolerance is the worst roar of all, including tolerance for homosexuals, feminists, and religions that don't follow Christ." – Josh McDowell, at a Youth for Christ rally in 1994 (errr... I assume we're included in the last phrase, from McDowell's perspective).

[camoguard]

Fuck society. The whole point in my opinion is to be who you think you should be and run the gauntlet to see how that works out given society. On one hand you can benefit from tradition to give you some foresight. On the other hand, tradition has bullshit woven through it's fabric. Screw it all. Anarchy!!!

[maiforpeace]

On the post in question, I too thank you for the references you gave. They provide evidence that contradicts the notion that religion is necessary for morality or quality of life, even suggesting the opposite may be true.

Speaking of morality, Reader's Digest conducted an experiment, 'losing' 1100 wallets in a variety of countries and counting how many were returned. Sure, the sample rate was on the low side, and the results a bit uneven, but keeping those limitations in mind, this tendency was discernible: The higher the rate of atheism the better the chances of having lost wallets returned. Extrapolating on this, one could say that atheists tend to be more honest than theists, and I think that honesty increases quality of life.

P.S. This amused me:

In Mexico, at least two apparently devout Christians who kept our wallets made the sign of the cross after picking them up and peeking inside. The cash, they must have decided, was heaven-sent.

Or, that a high quality of life increases honesty?

I don't think there is a correlation between honesty and belief or lack of belief. I just think some people are honest, and some are not. In most of the cases in the article where the religious people give their reasons for being honest, what motivated them were fairly well thought out reasons. It wasn't just simply god told me to, or I'll go to hell if I do.

Frankly, I don't care what motivates people to be honest, as long as they are.

[locutus7]

Of course, if you adhere to a belief system where you can sin during the week and be forgiven on Sunday, well, you might feel that you can get away with criminal acts. In fact, if one were cynical, one could speculate that some believers would commit crimes just to have something to confess to on Sunday

[camoguard]

Of course, if you adhere to a belief system where you can sin during the week and be forgiven on Sunday, well, you might feel that you can get away with criminal acts. In fact, if one were cynical, one could speculate that some believers would commit crimes just to have something to confess to on Sunday

My system essentially removes the penalties from sin entirely. To maximize sin though you end up with the same base morals. Killing shortcuts the bonuses you can get from coveting your neighbor's wife even longer. Stuff like that...