Turns out, societies that have more non-believers murder and rape each other on a much lower level than we here in America:
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.
So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.
****
The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.
Unsurprising, and worthy of a discussion.
Tom
Guns.
Dennis - SGMM
People may be nicer to each other in those countries but, they don’t have a moral bailout plan.
wvng
"The sorry state of American atheists," may be because being an atheist is something of a political statement in this s country, whereas agnostics (who are basically atheists without the attitude) aren’t a sorry lot at all. But agnostics are equally outsiders as far as higher elective office. I mean, who could trust someone to govern who doesn’t have an imaginary friend?
Brian J
I think it was on Marginal Revolution where, some time ago, I saw a post about how the least religious countries on the planet are the ones with legitimate state sponsored religions. I have no idea what to make of that thought, but it’s definitely an interesting observation, if true.
Conservatively Liberal
It doesn’t surprise me one bit. We Americans like to think that we are the best of the best, but a quick look around the world will dispel that illusion for anyone who can readily admit the truth. But the Republicans, umm, I mean the religious nuts, tell us how great we are (especially if we vote for them) and the other nuts nod and agree.
Religion is the root of quite a bit of the evil we face in our world, no two ways about it. Most of the current conflicts around the world are religious in nature, and when it comes to religion and war, it’s winner takes all.
Everyone else loses.
JGabriel
Michael D. @ Top:
I agree.
Oddly enough, I’m reminded of a quote from Angel (here’s hoping I don’t mangle it): "If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."
Sounds like an organizing principle an atheist society would probably take to heart.
Alternately, and more likely I suppose, a society that has removed religion has probaby removed a lot of other divisive irrelevancies as well.
Seems kind of appropriate to be discussing this on Sunday morning…
.
Don McArthur
Of course it does. That’s what it’s there for. Us and God vs. You, from the time of the original pack primates that invented it.
Steve The Other Plumber
Yeah I was wondering about that.
The cross on the Sweden and Denmark flags ain’t by accident.
4tehlulz
I have a hard time believing that America would be less violent if it was less religious. We just like violence.
Dennis - SGMM
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Bob Dylan – With God on Our Side
tom p
"The sorry state of American atheists,"
I had no idea I was in such a sorry state… In fact I thought I was doing pretty good for a Dog-less heathen.
aimai
I don’t get the phrase "the sorry state of American Atheists…" we’re not in a "sorry state" except perhaps the United States. We are the very ones, as far as I can see, who are *lowering* the overall rates of violence in this country, lowering the rates of divorce, unintended pregnacy, unintended abortion, etc…etc…etc… But of course the argument of the book, which I look forward to reading, is not terribly surprising since its the triumph of actual facts over wishful thinking. Over at the christianist women’s blogs they are convinced that without jesus they’d all be murdering and raping and taking drugs and what not. I wouldn’t, never been tempted. But according to them without the good book telling me what to do I would definitely be a criminal. What reality obtrudes into such a dark space that the actual believer, who knows herself best, thinks that she herself would be a ravening wolf were it not for personal jesus?
And of course the other main line of argumentation is equally incoherent: g-d’s plan for each of us makes us happy (viz: the unhappy divorced, gay, child molesting couples everywhere else) and if g-d’s plan doesn’t make us happy? he’s testing us and our very suffering must be seen as a rebuke to those absurdly happy atheists and perverts who don’t realize that they will get their suffering later, in hell. See how that works? head’s they win, tails we lose.
aimai
MBunge
"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."
Oh, for pete’s sake. I don’t even need to look at the study to know that there’s umpteen other things about those "more atheist societies" that have…
1. Little to do with religious belief.
2. A more obvious connection to low rates of murder, suicide, abortion and teen pregnany.
3. Little applicability to most other countries.
If someone tried to argue that it was Denmark being 91% ethnically white and Sweden 80% ethnically white that made then less violent and more "moral", that’d make about as much sense as saying it was atheism.
MIke
Gindy
While I do think religion is a huge waste of time, I don’t think it is the only reason those countries mentioned are successful. They are also countries that are far older than ours and whose populations have had more history to plow through on their way to some level of competence in governance.
One thing not mentioned in that article is the lack of diversity among the populations cited as most peaceful and prosperous. We have a far greater range of diversity in this country on ALL levels, including race and ethnic culture. That lack of commonness among a population has a way of making things move more smoothly. You don’t get the "He isn’t ‘like me’, so I hate him" crap we have here (substitute whatever ‘like me’ means in terms of color, race, religious persuasion or sexual orientation).
Mr. Bryant
The Swedish Church is now independent of the state.
Comrade Fwiffo
Not only are unbelievers underrepresented here in political office, they’re also underrepresented in prison. They simply commit fewer crimes.
Of course, atheists tend to be more educated and better off financially than the average, so correlations like that and like the ones in the study could account for much of the difference.
Tymannosourus
I think the link between securalism and the high quality of life in the Scandinavian countries is much more correlative than causal.
I think the quality of life there has much less to do with not getting their God on, and much more to do with forward thinking policies like socialized medicine and highly effective welfare programs.
Now I have to get back to deciding who to start on my PPR fantasy squad:
Donnie Avery vs. crappy CHI pass D or Dwayne Bowe @ BUF
TheHatOnMyCat
Yeah, we were discussing things like this 40 years ago.
The zeal to be so aggressively "religious" is pretty recent in this country. My impression was that radio and television provided a platform for ubiquitous and nonstop tent revival on a large scale, giving rise to the current circumstances. Faux religious values were seen as an antidote to the DFH wave, and its cousin, lie-beralism. With Nixon, the demonization really began. The "Silent Majority," and all that bullshit.
My hunch is that the disease has run its course, but time will tell.
Shaggy
@wvng: I have to disagree with you about your comment that "agnostics are atheists without the attitude."
My contention is that atheism is as dogmatic a "belief", albeit a more reasoned one, as the belief in a God and the practice of any specific religion.
In contrast, I see agnosticism is an almost scientific approach to belief.
I am looking forward to the troll posts any minute on here that contend atheists and agnostics have had their way with the lady that is our country because of the separation of church and state, or that the U.S.A. was founded as a Christian nation. We have so much power, ya’ll! That’s why we have a total of one atheist in the House. Just look at those number(s).
Less religion=less violence? I’ll believe it when we see a strong correlation between religion and violent acts here. The economy is more important in this regard, no?
HL Guy
How about this for a hypothesis- when things are relatively peaceful and well-administered, organized religion loses its appeal. Sort of the inverse of "No atheists in a foxhole." If there’s no threat, or direct objective evidence of things going unremittingly horribly, there’s less reason to turn to a powerful deity for comfort.
Justin
I’d have to see the study, but I suspect there’s a false correlation there. The more obvious difference between the U.S. and Denmark is that lack of poverty in Denmark–the social safety net is far stronger. And I’m not aware of anything that correlates as strongly with violent crime as poverty.
S
Correlation does not equal causation. I would like to normalize for climate before claiming anything such as this. These low crime areas are colder areas. The opportunities to commit crime are fewer when people are getting out less and interacting with one another less. Warmer areas have higher crime. Do we have any warm areas that are not very religious?
TheHatOnMyCat
That’s an interesting comment, really. My opinion is that the church-state separation has been kicked in the junk by the xtian demagogues, but has survived pretty well, all things considered.
The epic fail of the religious right in this election cycle, the epic fail of the Rev. Wright smears and the Obama=Muslim smears, and the collapse of the evangelical political movement even going back to the GOP primaries, are all indicators.
Americans seem to be somewhere between agnostic and indifferent about religion mixed with their politics. That’s why I said earlier that the faux religion disease may have run its course.
redbeardjim
Since when?
jrg
Yes and no. Can you be an atheist and still believe in a "God of Nature"? Can you be an atheist and still believe in the kind of social justice that Jesus taught? I think so.
Atheism is not as dogmatic a “belief", because it is the absence of a theistic belief. An atheist could be a humanist or a Nihilist. Any label that encompasses so much cannot imply a single, dogmatic world view.
No doubt about it.
Michael D.
Here’s a thought…
Maybe societies like Denmark, Sweden, and the others have healthcare and other elements of social welfare systems that don’t need to rely on praying over illnesses and depending on god to help solve issues.
Therefore, no need to believe in gods so much.
So it might be a reverse correlation, or whatever the statistical word is for it.
Brick Oven Bill
To compare Scandinavian countries’ crime statistics to American crime statistics, highlight the variable of faith, and ignore the variable of race, is kind of silly.
BlueDog
From beliefnet.com, friends and I have had some interesting discussions based from this "belief-o-matic" quiz.
Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx
*Warning: Belief-O-Matic™ assumes no legal liability for the ultimate fate of your soul.*
TheHatOnMyCat
To say nothing of criminals having to freeze their asses off while committing their crime, and the problems of just running away in four feet of snow.
Michael D.
Well yeah, there is that.
TheHatOnMyCat
Thank Dog for editable posts.
Tim F.
When I asked years ago, my scandanavian friends explained that Sweden only established an official religion so that other European countries would stop bothering them about it. Nobody there takes religion seriously.
Bob In Pacifica
Actually, hominids were originally hierarchical, like chimps and gorillas, with groups run by alpha males. However, there was an egalitarian revolution during the Pleistocene that occurred along with the growth of the frontal lobes. Hominids could form alliances not based on the alpha male. Two or three smaller apes discovered they could kick the alpha male’s ass. As the ability to remember alliances and feel empathy towards others developed hominid groups became equalized. At the end of the Pleistocene hunter-gather groups were all egalitarian.
Unfortunately, with the development of agriculture and livestocking control of resources created inequality. Most early societies became hierarchical based on weapons and the invention of gods who dwelled in the amygdalas of the fearful. If the leaders weren’t gods themselves (like the pharoahs) they were the representatives of gods. Like the Queen of England serves at the grace of God and Dubya talks with God before he launches an invasion. Some people actually still believe this.
Humans have both an egalitarian self and a fearful, reactionary self. Hierarchies exploit the latter. The Scandinavians appear to be putting that part of human irrationality behind them.
TheHatOnMyCat
Which is where another climate correlation may come in to play. It’s hard to have grinding poverty in severe cold weather. The poor want to migrate to warmer climes, for their own survival.
My neighborhood is a pretty typical-looking middle class neighborhood in the middle of a big city. There is not a day, maybe not even an hour, that goes by that I cannot see a homeless person from my front window.
It’s going to be 80 degrees here today. I seriously doubt that there is no connection.
Scott H
Fail. The fundamental is competition for resources. A cursory observation of activity on a day care play mat will tell you that. The Scandinavian social revolution came before the decline in their overt piety. Sidebar, "viking’ does does not translate as "punting over to Lindisfarne to borrow a cup of barley."
pikhoved
Denmark is not that cold, its kinda like New York.
Shaggy
@jrg: Alright then. Atheism is the absence of belief in something whose absence we cannot absolutely prove. In that regard, it strikes me as a belief. It is an absolute position regarding something for which I, as a scientist, see a lack of proof "for" or "against." My natural disposition is to lean "against", and I am then accused of lacking a sack by the atheists because I am not an absolutist.
@TheHatOnMyCat: I agree with you. But there has been overlap between racism and Christian demagoguery this election cycle – the increased death threats against Obama after Palin rallies, while probably racially-motivated, have distinct (intolerant) Christian undertones; the language was so frequently coded. Obama won, but a large number of crazies are out there, and I think they think they’re Christian.
Another point I was making was that there must be a delay from culture to politics, because agnostic/atheist numbers in our society are underrepresented within our government.
I’ll feel better about the lack of Christians influencing politics in this country when every school system abandons the notion of teaching the non-science of Intelligent Design alongside or instead of evolutionary theory.
4jkb4ia
Can’t figure out how to reply, but I think aimai knows that Jacob didn’t claim that religion made him happy. In fact, Jacob said that "few and bad have been the days of the years of my sojourns". All the Avos had blessings which I suppose we are still living off of, and they worked off the promise of those blessings, but none of those blessings said, "You’re going to be happy". Those blessings said, "You’re going to have a mission. You are going to live in the large and dare greatly". At least part of the responsibility for making them happy was up to their wives and families :) Also I think being happy is a mitzvah or at least a good character trait. It is not simply something you get.
I will wholeheartedly agree that you can be a good person without believing in G-d. You can even have a very severe sense of morality. The sorts of values which get you not to murder or rape come from respect for your fellow human being, and that can come even without believing that they have a soul per se. That goes back to Kant. A human being can be an end in themselves without G-d having established that this is so.
Brick Oven Bill
On second thought, Zuckerman, Sociology Professor at Pitzer College, a Member of the Claremont Colleges (?), who lists his favorite songs on his website, might have a point.
I grew up in a part of Chicago that was only marginally religious. Most people did not go to church. And I went through my entire schooling period without even witnessing a guy get knocked unconscious.
In contrast, in those parts of Chicago influenced by the religious teachings of our Nation’s President’s former Spiritual Advisor, a new kid is shot dead at school every ten days.
James
This statement has no basis in fact. There is no evidence of it, and in fact the opposite may be true, depending upon what you deem to be "a better person."
If you mean law-abiding, good citizenship, generous, fair-minded, kind-to-the-family-dog, and hard-working, I’d say there is no evidence whatsoever that religious people have more of those qualities than others.
Bob In Pacifica
The block quote thingie doesn’t keep everything in the block quote. What’s up with that?
Damned at Random
I took the point to be not that athiesm makes Sweden and Denmark less violent but that the absence of religion does not make them the hellholes that the fundies predict will result from the absence of God.
People behave according to a basic moral creed in most circumstances where social order prevails. When the social order breaks down due to famine, war or selective justice, violence results regardless of the presence or absence of a sky buddy.
Shygetz
@Shaggy: Atheism and agnosticism are answers to different questions. Atheism is an answer to a metaphysical question–do you have an affirmative belief that god(s) exist. Yes=theist; no=atheist. It is not an affirmative belief that god(s) cannot exist; that is called strong atheism. Weak atheism (which is by FAR the most common) is the statement that we have no sufficient reason to believe god(s) exist.
Agnosticism is an answer to an epistemological question–is it possible to know if god(s) exist. Agnostics say no, we do not know. Strong agnostics say we cannot know, no matter how much we learn. Weak atheists say we do not know, but it may be possible to learn someday.
I am a weak agnostic (bordering on strong), weak atheist. As a scientist, you should understand that the affirmative belief is to be withheld until the null hypothesis is disproven. In the absence of evidence that god(s) are affecting the universe, the scientific method would demand that we withhold affirmative belief (weak atheism).
Comrade Peter J
The head of the Sweden, the Swedish monarch, and his or her family must all belong to the "pure evangelical faith".
B
For all those racist? people who say that we have less crime and more welfare because we are not diverse I’d like to point out that a fifth of Swedish citizens were not born that way. I’d also like to point out that just the tiny Swedish town of Södertälje has recieved more Iraqi fugitives than ALL of North America.
The US religious people seem to prefer being kind to others by bombing their countries…
Ecks
Actually, the noted psychology author David Myers has a book which collates the evidence that religion is generally a positive force that is associated with increased charitable giving, slightly greater felt subjective well-being (depending on how often you go to church, NOT how strong you merely profess your faith to be), and so on. There really is a case to be made that religion, on balance, helps people.
I’d argue with the reverse-causality people here. I think religion builds social connections and communities between people, and this makes it far more attractive in places where there is a dearth of social connection and community to begin with. If you live somewhere like Sweden where you can be moderately assured of being looked after then it’s not so attractive. If you live in the wrong parts of Chicago where life tends to be nasty and brutal, then it is a meme that is going to find far greater traction with you.
So says this atheist :)
edit: this weak, leaning strong atheist / strong agnostic
Matt
@Shaggy:
So what you’re saying is that you’re willing to say "maybe" to the question of the existence of anything for which there is absolutely no shred of proof?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Odin?
Vishnu?
A orbiting teapot?
Tiny unicorns under your bed?
The only difference between myself and an agnostic is that I’m willing to say "no" to these questions, and I’ll revisit the idea if someone comes along with a unicorn detector. Well, that, and I get attacked a lot more for apparently being some kind of wild-eyed absolutist.
Garrigus Carraig
@TheHatOnMyCat:
The politicization of zeal may be recent, but there has always been zeal here. Fringe and extreme religious groups either came here from Europe (Quakers, Mennonites) or started up here (Mormons, Christian Science, Scientology, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses). I think this is due to the very broad freedom of religion the US has always had, & I think it’s why issues of religion are so fraught here, seemingly uniquely so in the Western World.
John
Lots of people beating up on this sentence, which seemed stupid to me at first as well. In general, I advise reading the original article in full before going into full attack mode – Bloom has, at that point in the article, cited various studies which show various positive behavior (giving to charity, giving blood, etc.) which religious people do to a greater extent than non-religious people. This may be a weak basis for such a strong claim as made in the quoted statement, but it behooves one to argue against this, rather than act as though Michael’s quotation is the whole article.
expat
I’d say this is more correlation than causation given other factors. These are extremely ethnically homogeneous. They have a more expansive welfare state which provides education (sex and otherwise), jobs, and social protections which lowers crime rates and abortions across the board regardless of belief. They also have fewer guns and those who do have them exist in a culture much different than US gun culture.
One could argue that such progressive, liberal policies tend to also create a more atheistic society but to say that it is because there is no belief in God that causes such a culture is I think a stretch. There are numerous examples of progressive believers causing social change (most notably anti-slavery, and civil rights in the US). Not all Christians are rabid fundies, they’ve just grabbed the spotlight to highlight their anti-Jesus message (intolerance, wearing their religion on their sleeve, etc)
canuckistani
Shaggy – ponder the the semantic difference between "I believe there is no god" and "I do not believe there is a god". Both are atheist positions (so called "strong" and "weak"), but I’m sure you can see that failing to believe in a god does not strike me as an absolute position.
Garrigus Carraig
@B: Yeah, but immigration is new to Sweden, probably 50 years out of a 1000 year history. Whereas the US has always only been diverse. This goes for the rest of Scandinavia as well. Scandinavia’s history of ethnic homogeneity is unusual even by European standards.
demimondian
@Brick Throwing Bill: It’s good to see our resident skinhead is back preaching His Gospel of self-love and intolerance.
Matt
@John: Sad but true. A couple of things that organized religion has going for it are an established social community, and a background of charitable activities. Atheists…not so much. There’s not enough of us and we’re not organized, so charitable works on the individual level, like donations, giving blood, etc., tend to become part of the background noise.
On a more negative note, atheism has enough of a bad rep that charitable actions by atheists tend to be seen in the light of that atheism, where these good deeds are being performed "in spite" of atheism, or as some sort of sinister plot to seem harmless.
TheHatOnMyCat
I’d expand your expansion by saying that the zeal has always been there (the 28% thing isn’t new, in fact it is mentioned in the Time "Is God Dead" article I cited earlier from 1969), but that the middle’s indifference to its craziness is recent, and that, combined with Southern resentment over civil rights, gave rise to the Southern Strategy and the deliberate conflation of religion and patriotism and "family values" that our opponents have ridden all these years.
Sure, there were always religious nuts out there, and tent revivals, but not widespread embracing of that stuff by the mainstream, the middle. I think that the middle is now moving on. Obama is the new middle.
demimondian
@TheHatOnMyCat: I agree with you that fanaticism is old hat, but I think you’re probably wrong about this:
In fact, America has gone through periods of "religious reawakenings" several times since it was founded. Those periods have typically shared a number of rather nasty features: a sharp rise in nativism, increases in social distinctions, a rise in the number of very rich, and the like. Often, those reawakenings have been fueled by some small number of people demagoguing a particular moderate social problem as if it was a huge issue, while covering up the fact that the social "problem" actually reflected a changed tolerance.
For instance, the temperance movement demagogued alcohol — which was certainly a problem — while ignoring the fact that it was a convenient excuse for demonizing Catholics. Similarly, the modern intolerance movement talks a lot about "crime and abortion", while conveniently ignoring the fact that those two topics allow people to feel morally superior to non-white, urban, Americans (who make up the bulk of the visible poor) and non-male Americans (who are most affected by abortion and contraception rights)
Andrew A. Gill
FYI–the 2005 study seems to be fairly flawed. I took it to task over at Fark.
Executive summary: The study cherry-picked its results (only one country, the US, was included as a representative of a democracy with a religious populace, and it inexplicably left out many of the nations assessed in its own data sources).
Look at the charts that I posted and tell me if you can find any correlation between the plots and, well, anything.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4037024&IDComment=46549323#c46549323
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4037024&IDComment=46549369#c46549369
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4037024&IDComment=46549414#c46549414
And two criticisms of the study:
one more credible
than the other
Tim F.
How about this: using rational logic (e.g., arguing) to address something which by definition is outside of rational logic is by definition a waste of time. The positions of both the strong atheist and the strong theist (those who would compel others to believe in their god) are equally idiotic. The utilitarian argument is also mixed. Religious faith gave us civil rights and it gave us the Spanish Inquisition. It produced Ghandi and the worst excesses of the Indian BJP. It spawned a scientific and literary renaissance in the mideast, hundreds of years before European pontiffs stopped burning independent women at the stake, and it spawned al Qaeda.
Even arguing about whether or not we should have religion is useless – our strength and weakness as intelligent mammals is a pattern recognition that inherently predisposes us to supersitition. Deep down in the human mind, too deep to pull out, are the impulses towards religion and ill-advised sex. The best we can do is emulate the best examples of when government and religion interact productively.
Brachiator
I’m a non-believer. But I’m not a nice person. In fact, crap like this makes me want to kick someone in the ass.
The either/or between belief/non-belief is totally false. Even with the Scandanavian example, the more interesting question is what are their ethical beliefs and how do these beliefs reflect their view of society.
Also, Bloom outright lies about one of the findings of "Gross National Happiness," and does so even though a fuller discussion of this with the book’s author himself is easily available. Some of the "atheists" who donated less than "God fearing" people were those who believed that government had an affirmative obligation to help the poor, and that personal donations to individuals were inefficient and misguided. One may disagree with this view, but obviously it has nothing to do with whether or not charity makes you happy.
Of course the Scandavians, as Vikings, spread their seed to other countries via the standard method of raping, looting, and pillaging. Scientists are also finding that Icelandic people are more genetically diverse than conventional wisdom once led people to believe, and I think that the same will hold true for other Scandanavian populations as well. But by any measure, an idea of a "European standard" of ethnic homogeneity is fiction. The same is the case with every other region of the world.
Hyperion
@Ecks:
there’s a big difference between the number of folks who claim to be religious and the number of folks who actually go to church regularly.
i think going to church (or supporting another community based organization) builds social connections, etc. so i think your logic is flawed.
scarshapedstar
I’m the ten zillionth person to say this, but atheism is a belief like bald is a hair color. Or maybe it’s like saying that a teetotaler is every bit as much a sobriety addict as a guy who drinks gin for breakfast is an alcoholic. It’s a false equivalency, and I’m sure it makes many people feel better, but it’s complete bullshit psychologically.
The very nature of your contention implies that man is naturally predisposed to belief in God and that this is right and good and to do otherwise takes a continual, constant effort, like quitting smoking.
I was religious once because my family, my school, and my church forced me to be. Shortly after leaving home, I realized that it was a genuinely pointless affair, and after seven years I’ve yet to see any divine influence creeping into my life and making me question my wild-eyed, dogmatic unBeliefs. I get in and out of bed without praying. I spend my Sundays doing what I want. I perform research without reservation. I work hard and follow my own moral code. And absolutely none of it is due to fear of the unGod of Atheism who will torture me forever and ever and ever if I profess belief in anything.
xyzzy
Tim F. wrote:
Heh indeedy. Truly, there is nothing more convincing than a blanket assertion backed up by years-old hearsay related to a credulous rube by anonymous acquaintances. Why didn’t I think of this approach when I was trying to defend my doctoral thesis?
I bet the Swedes were really relieved when "other European countries" were finally pacified by their shiny new official religion! "WHEW," said old Bjorne Långstrump to his assembled friends, wiping his brow as they sat down to a hearty meal of reindeer cutlets and elderberry pancakes, "I am SO glad that fucking FRANCE is finally off our case about that official religion thing! It’s like they had nothing better to do but harass us for twenty centuries."
Roland X
The Soviet Union was atheist. How many died in the gulags again?
There is, of course, a titanic difference. In the Soviet Union, atheism was enforced. Personally, I think there’s no real correlation between metaphysical belief and behavior — I suspect it’s much more a combined matter of culture, liberty and welfare security. Denmark and Sweden have healthy cultures and high levels of both of the latter. America has long-encoded freedom of religion (see Amendment, First), but the Culture War is ultimately about religion, and we’ve never had anything resembling Europe’s societal safety net.
None of this is remotely scientific, though. I don’t think we’ve ever had anything resembling a "control" group for this purpose. Only time will tell.
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
TheHatOnMyCat
Could be, but I don’t agree that we are watching just another iteration of that cycle (if that’s what you are suggesting), but if we are, then we seem to be in a valley of the zealots’ grip on the rest of us.
Personally I think that the cycle paints a wave that is smoothing out. I don’t know how you go from the 2004 election to the 2008 election without suggesting that smoothing is happening. Otherwise, gulp, we are just looking at a calm before another storm. I prefer not to think that.
Roland X
scashapedstar said:
Dude, you believe there is no God. That’s a metaphysical belief. It’s obviously not a form of worship, but it is not an "absence of belief." Agnosticism is an absence of belief. Atheism is a belief in an absence. No false equivalence, just fact.
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
Notorious P.A.T.
No. Not if you’ve spent your live on planet Earth, rather than a cave on the moon.
Religious people start holocausts, pogroms, crusades, witchhunts, inquisitions, etc. When you divide the world into "saved/unsaved" or "righteous/evil" it’s just a matter of time until the people in the "other" category become less human than you. And the gloves come off.
I think I’ve posted this before:
http://www.paultrapnell.com/3300/upload/?act=dl&file=cHJlcy14eC1SZWxpZ2lvdXNuZXNzLUFsdGVtZXllci1QcmVqLUlKUFItMjAwMy5wZGY=
Notorious P.A.T.
True, but there are lots of guns in Canada but not nearly as many murders as here.
Garrigus Carraig
@Brachiator:
My point was that no large populations moved into Scandinavia after the Scandinavians (North Germanics) arrived. Whereas elsewhere in Europe you have significant populations moving around & mixing in — Huns, Germans, Slavs, North Africans, &c. — through the 16th century. Hence the ethnic mix in Sweden was settled long before it was in, say, Spain.
Notorious P.A.T.
But, atheists don’t believe "nothing we do matters".
I’ve heard that people who identify as non-religious are growing faster than any other group in America.
Notorious P.A.T.
Iraq must be a paradise on Earth. Virtually everyone there is an Arab. So, there’s probably no way they would ever go to war with each other. And if they did, it would probably be because a new ethnic group moved in, right? Same with Ireland: old culture, everyone is white, so no way they would start blowing each other up. Rwanda, too.
Notorious P.A.T.
Must be, because it’s not like here in America the most rabidly anti-government are the religious fundamentalists.
Obviously. After all, Sweden and Denmark haven’t had anything to worry about the past 70 years, like being invaded by the Third Reich or living next door to the USSR.
Sorry, I’ll turn the sarcasm off now.
demimondian
I think that there’s probably a broad consensus that religious zealotry in support of evil is a bad thing. I think that there’s probably also a broad consensus that religious zealotry in support of good is a *good* thing. You can’t have one without the other.
I raised the example of Carrie Nation and the temperance movement above. It was successful as a government policy, at least in part, because of its convenient, but latent, anti-Catholicism: the Calvinist sects tended to be abstinent, while the Roman church is not. I, personally, think that this is A Bad Thing.
However, Nation and her followers were responding to another class of Bad Things as well. Despite nominal abstinence, alcohol abuse was commonplace in America among all men, and it brought the same evils which we see today: poverty, violence, and early death. Reducing alcohol abuse was A Good Thing.
Nation and others focused on one means to solve a problem. It was a poor means, and it was easily exploited to evil ends. But their vehemence about alcohol abuse, a problem that affected us far more seriously then than it does now, was entirely justified.
demimondian
@Notorious P.A.T.: Tell that to the Kurds, eh?
Garrigus Carraig
@Notorious P.A.T.: In some places, clanship is more important than ethnicity. Iraq is one of these places. So is Somalia. The Ulster Protestant Irish arrived, for the most part, from Scotland in the 17th century.
demimondian
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Sorry about the fogginess of my post. Yes, I am arguing exactly that we are deep in a "reawakening" cycle. In fact, I do believe that we are deep in a valley of the zealot’s grip, although I hope that the grip is weakening somewhat.
TheHatOnMyCat
It is because of Jesus that we are having this genteel discussion on this thread.
Where are the flame wars, the radioactive rhetoric?
Clearly, the baby Jesus is in control here.
Atheists, pay attention. This is what happens when you just Let God.
demimondian
@TheHatOnMyCat: Speak for yourself. For my part, I felt the touch of the FSM’s noodley appendage as I awoke this morning, and the Piracy of my Aggressiveness has not yet worn off.
And I’ll fight with ANYONE WHO DARES SAY OTHERWISE.
Objective Scrutator
If you do not believe in a Sentient Being that cares about the morals of His people, and do not think that there is a Being that Divinely Intervenes, then you are an Atheist. Pantheism is an attempt by Atheists to covertly force their agenda on us by pretending to believe in some Higher Power, when in reality, that Higher Power is something that scientists attempt to explain. Those who try to pretend that they believe in a God Who created the universe, yet ignored the world after that, are actually Atheists. That is why Deism is an attempt to combine Theism with anti-religion. At any rate, one must be a churchgoing theist to be moral, lest they begin to practice the deviancy known as science.
Science is an arrogant practice, and those that buy into its lies are predestined for Hellfire. Scientists, believing that they deserve all credit for knowing how things work, refuse to acknowledge that nothing can be proven. They feel the need to plagiarize from God, the Supreme Inventor of the universe, and try to claim that they are the gatekeepers of the Truth. Technology, the only useful vice that scientists claim to be interested in, is actually from God, not Man.
God lays out quite clearly in His Bible that all technology comes from divinely inspired guesswork and unparalleled piety. Inventors like Charles Babbage and Alan Turning are subsequently possessed by Satan. The Dark Lord sometimes does not release his demonic connotations immediately in his invention. Thus, while the earliest 10,000 pound computers are often free of demons, later computers, such as Macs, are often influenced by evils such as Darwinism.
Schlessinger is right on when she says that we need God. Even though the atheist Scandinavians are overall immoral and, thanks to their welfare system, lazy, they are divinely inspired to attend church so that they don’t become completely evil.
TheHatOnMyCat
.
Jesus is getting a little verklempt …..
Tymannosourus
And the internet is fueled by holy water and and angel breath.
You, sir, are a national treasure.
TheHatOnMyCat
Yes. Every divine packet represents the body of Christ.
xyzzy
Scrutator wrote:
Hahahaha! This thread is comedy gold.
TheHatOnMyCat
Or, whatever.
TheHatOnMyCat
The God that can be known is not the true God.
Oh wait …… wrong book.
Garrigus Carraig
@Objective Scrutator: lulz ok scrutator you can stay.
Tymannosourus
Brad Childress is proof that there is no such thing as an all-good, all-powerful being.
Splitting Image
I would argue that belief in "the Devil" has a much stronger correlation to violence levels than belief in god. Many religions have no devil at all, and many denominations of Christianity downplay the devil’s role in the world. Keep your nose to the grindstone, they say, and whatever evils exist become more or less irrelevant.
Other versions of Christianity have almost no clear idea of what characteristics their god has other than that his name is Jesus The Lord. On the other hand, they have an extremely clear picture of who the Devil is – and which people do his work. This is the main thing that made Jerry Falwell different from Jimmy Carter.
I don’t think it’s out of line to suggest that Devil-believers are more common in the U.S. than in Sweden, and that this is where the increase in violence may be. I have a friend who joined a Pentecostal church recently and immediately started asking me if I agreed that Barack Obama was probably the Anti-Christ. Having followed the election pretty closely, I wasn’t the least surprised.
A few people mentioned the difference between atheism and agnosticism. I think that an atheist is more likely to paint theism itself as a Force For Evil in the world (i.e. a Devil) than an agnostic, which may account for the apparent differences between them. It would be interesting to see if different types of Christian were more likely to become one or the other when they leave the church.
Objective Scrutator
"And the internet is fueled by holy water and and angel breath."
No, it was actually created by Ted Stevens after he attended church. Perhaps he used those devices; perhaps he didn’t. Maybe he would share how he created the Internet, but it looks like you and that RINO from South Carolina are too eager to do away with him, so we’ll probably lose the Internet to Darwinists unless we start praying for Ted Stevens.
"Hahahaha! This thread is comedy gold."
Yes, only to those that know how to quote mine parts of my sentence, and obscure the rest. To Real Americans, I trumpet the Truth.
"Or, whatever."
Fine, then. Change the Scandinavian churches to Wiccan Tree sites, and tell me how moral they are after you do that.
"The God that can be known is not the true God.
Oh wait …… wrong book."
Just try the Bible. It’s proven by the Free Market.
TheHatOnMyCat
Hey, don’t make yourself out to be Louis Armstrong, brother.
I know trumpet truth when I hear it.
Tymannosourus
@Objective Scrutator:
Your posts have embiggened us all.
Garrigus Carraig
@Objective Scrutator: srsly u have picked up ur game
Objective Scrutator
"Other versions of Christianity have almost no clear idea of what characteristics their god has other than that his name is Jesus The Lord. On the other hand, they have an extremely clear picture of who the Devil is – and which people do his work. This is the main thing that made Jerry Falwell different from Jimmy Carter."
I thought that Jimmy Carter believed in Satan. Then again, he’s probably a Muslim, anyways.
"I would argue that belief in "the Devil" has a much stronger correlation to violence levels than belief in god. Many religions have no devil at all, and many denominations of Christianity downplay the devil’s role in the world. Keep your nose to the grindstone, they say, and whatever evils exist become more or less irrelevant."
Quick question: does Hinduism have a devil? Because if they don’t, then your hypothesis falls flat, because they were just as violent towards the Islamists as the Islamists were towards them.
Besides, criminals are usually members of the minority religion of a country. Thankfully, our prisons have an excellent rehabilitation program, in the form of converting denizens to Christianity. That still doesn’t replace the death penalty as a deterrent, though.
"A few people mentioned the difference between atheism and agnosticism. I think that an atheist is more likely to paint theism itself as a Force For Evil in the world (i.e. a Devil) than an agnostic, which may account for the apparent differences between them. It would be interesting to see if different types of Christian were more likely to become one or the other when they leave the church."
I’ve noted that many agnostics don’t actually think about religion that much, and are typically Dispensationalists. Then again, apathy towards God is almost as bad as hostility towards Him. (Personally, I think that those who rebel from liberal churches will be less atheist than those who rebel from conservative churches, since conservatism encourages conflict, which atheists have plenty of. Liberal churches have some Pacifistic apathy about religion in general, and I feel that going to a liberal church inevitably leads to agnosticism.)
The cycle goes something like this: Conservative churches grow more liberal with society, liberal churches lose laymen to those that care even less about God (agnostics) or to those that care more about God (conservative churches). The free market sees these people leaving the liberal churches, and notes that a conservative church would accurately serve this demographic, thus re-increasing the amount of conservative churches, until they become so conservative that they become obsolete.
Thankfully, I stay with an ultraconservative church that never has, and never will, change. Our theology has been pretty rigid ever since Rushdoony.
xyzzy
Seriously, folks, I think Objective Scrutator has a real point here: God DID invent the internet. I mean, God’s the one who’s been advising Bush the last eight years, and when I look at the results of that, it’s obvious that the same guy also designed the old IEEE 802.3 DB-15 slide-lock. Talk about a cockup!
Objective Scrutator
"Hey, don’t make yourself out to be Louis Armstrong, brother.
I know trumpet truth when I hear it."
That mostly comes from Miles Davis, dude.
"God DID invent the internet. I mean, God’s the one who’s been advising Bush the last eight years, and when I look at the results of that, it’s obvious that the same guy also designed the old IEEE 802.3 DB-15 slide-lock. Talk about a cockup!"
That’s exactly right! God knows a good idea when He can conceive of them.
Also: Here is the Macintosh link.
Ecks
@Garrigus Carraig: It’s not new to Canada, which has as long a history of immigration as the US, and has it at considerably higher levels – about 11% of the US population at any given time is foreign born, as opposed to about 18-20% of Canada’s. But I’d posit that Canada is much closer to Sweden in this example than it is the the US.
Ecks
@Hyperion:
There’s a big difference between being religious and going to church, but not independence. Mostly only religious people go to church regularly.
But you’re not really disagreeing with my original logic: Religion builds community – it’s not an inherent property of believing in God, but it’s a reliable side effect of meeting regularly with a bunch of people from your area, and is often fueled by the self-transcending messages and/or "us vs. the world" ingrouping environments that a lot of churches supply.
Ecks
Seriously, Baptists are a minority religion in Texas? Because they’re the largest plurality in the prison population there.
Oh, Scrutator, just ignore me. Don’t ever let reality get in the way of nuttery, you entertain us far too much.
Garrigus Carraig
@Ecks: And Canada is somewhat godless, yes? Not sure. In any event, I think Michael Moore (in "Bowling for Columbine") did a pretty good job exploring why violence in the US is so much higher than gun-filled Canada.
Jess
If there’s no Big Daddy in the Sky, then YOU are responsible for your own moral choices and behavior. You can’t claim the right to persecute others because of what it says in the Bible, or because the Pope or preacher said it was cool. You can’t throw your pregnant teenager out of the house or bomb an abortion clinic in the name of God–that act will be firmly attached to your name and your ethics, no buck-passing allowed.
Thus, in my view, atheism is inherently the more ethical choice since one has no choice but to think through one’s moral code and take responsibility for it. I am an atheist because I see no evidence of God, but I am committed to atheism because I think it’s the right thing to do. Even if I had good evidence that God existed, s/he wouldn’t have any say over my moral judgment.
Jess
@Garrigus Carraig: I thought that was the weakest part of his argument actually. A more convincing explanation is that in Canada the rule of law and the pattern of settlement had a closer correlation, while in the US the lawlessness of the frontier fostered an aggressively self-protective, paranoid, might-makes-right mentality not unlike ghetto gang culture. I think I got this theory from Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate" (excellent book, BTW), but I’ve been reading a lot of history about the American West, so I might have picked it up somewhere else.
Blue Raven
contemplates pointing out that people are still arguing religion on a binary basis of single versus none with no respect paid to multiple-deity systems with entirely different rules
decides it’s too nice a day to poke atheists or theists with spoons
leaves
Lynne
#47 –
"Fringe and extreme religious groups" –
compared to what?
All Christian religious groups,except the home-grown varieties, came from Europe. Until about 1750, the Quakers were the largest Christian group in the Colonies.
eyelessgame
What shygetz said. If you undertake to write down on a piece of paper all the gods you believe exist, and if at the end of the exercise the paper is blank, you’re an atheist. I’m only as dogmatic about gods as I am about werewolves.
ksmiami
Most atheists I know (and I am a mix of atheist and agnostic if that is possible) are ethical, intelligent humanists. Christian people ask me how I can face everyday without the thought of an afterlife and they are stunned when I say the following:
If this is all we get, I just try to live everyday as if it is the greatest gift and i try to be a better person, do more good and make the world better every day!
Garrigus Carraig
@Jess: Fair point.
Garrigus Carraig
@Blue Raven: Wish you had stayed. The thing about exclusive monotheism is that it necessarily breeds conflict (I’m lookin’ at you, Islam). AFAIK The post-exilic Jews were the only monotheistic group in the Roman Republic/Empire, & the tension between Judaism & the Roman imperial cult was one of the main drivers of the AD40-135 conflict in Judea, culminating in the expulsion of almost the entire Jewish population.
Whereas polytheists can always tack on another god.
That being said, polytheisms in Europe and the Mediterranean were not able, ultimately, to stand up to the risings of monotheism (exception: the Aten cult in Egypt). Caveat: Christianity’s status as a monotheism is tenuous at best. It seems to be construed as a monotheism while actually being practiced as a polytheism.
Garrigus Carraig
And, as I knew it would be, that Macintosh link is full of win.
Brachiator
@Roland X:
You should never invoke "dude" in vain, dude. I’m a non-believer, or more accurately a furiously serious agnostic. There ain’t no metaphysics here, it is that I find the questions about a deity to be deeply irrelevant. I don’t care. There is no evidence for a deity of any sort, anywhere. There is nothing to believe, and nothing to disbelieve. Further, if an deity popped up, my only reaction would be, "cool," since I do not believe (the only place where values are relevant) that I would have a need to acknowledge, worship, follow or submit to the will of any entity that purported to be a deity. The rational response would be "why do I have free will if the point of existence is to determine a deity’s purpose and then submit to it?"
Point noted, but again I don’t think this was really that unusual, and in any event, not especially significant. And like the Eurasian steppes, from which emerged successive waves of peoples, Scandinavia was evidently a great place to be from, but not particularly hospitable to potential immigrants.
But the Ulster Protestants weren’t simply a clan that "arrived" in Northern Ireland, but part of a deliberate British policy to settle that area and to dominate Irish Catholics. The history of Iraq and Somalia is similarly complicated. Somalia’s disintegration, for example, was exacerbated by the geopolitical games played by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. And of course, Iraq was cobbled together by the British, and modern Somalia was an amalgamation of British and Italian colonial territories.
Garrigus Carraig
@Brachiator:
I guess I disagree; I think it is unusual in Europe. In Spain e.g. you see the arrivals of Romans, Jews, Vandals, Goths, Arabs and Berbers — all after new populations had stopped coming to Scandinavia (before the recent arrivals). I’m concluding that Sweden is less ethnically diverse than Spain. I’d go on to argue that the Scandinavian states are the most ethnically homogenous in the Western World. And then I guess that that may have something to do with their being apparently anomalous vis-a-vis the rest of the Western World. But I might well be wrong.
Garrigus Carraig
@Brachiator:
My post there was only in response to Notorious P.A.T.’s sarcasm. And there should have been a break before the Ireland bit.
Notorious P.A.T.
You mean the kurds that are basically segregated off into one corner of the country, while Shi’ia and Sunni butcher each other in Baghdad?
Of course there are clans in Iraq, but I don’t think that’s the reason Iran is supporting its Shi’ites and Saudi Arabia is supporting its Sunnis.
Notorious P.A.T.
America is a diverse place, no doubt about it. And in theory, it makes a certain amount of sense to thinks that maybe different "kinds" of people, with different ideas, and different barriers to getting along with people who aren’t "like" them, is the cause of our country’s violence.
But here’s the thing: A white American is about twice as likely to be victimized by another white American as they are by a black American. And, a black American is about twice as likely to be victimized by another black American as by a white American. Even when we fought a war over race, it was white vs. white.
I Googled "crime rate by country" and here’s the first entry:
chart It’s hard to tell exactly, but it looks to me like Australia (a country that is roughly as diverse as America but much less religious) has a homicide rate about a third of ours.
Notorious P.A.T.
I agree totally! How could we put someone in charge of our country’s future who doesn’t see the end of the world as part of God’s plan, rather than something to be avoided?
; )
"My contention is that atheism is as dogmatic a "belief""
I always considered a "dogma" to be something a) that its believers aren’t allowed to question at all and b) something put forth and endorsed by a central authority. There is no Atheism Central to enforce nonbelief, and there’s no problem with an atheist considering whether or not a god exists if some new evidence comes to light.
Notorious P.A.T.
Sorry again. That was "I disagree with you but respect you" sarcasm, not "I disagree with you and think you’re an idiot" sarcasm.
Brachiator
@Garrigus Carraig:
You have not shown in any way how Scandinavia’s relative homogeneity is significant. As Vikings, the Scandinavian countries were as nasty, brutish, expanionist and bloodthirsty as any other group of people in the world. Norway, Denmark and Sweden had no problem warring among themselves (and the idea of pan-Scandinavian nationalism was a feverish dream of the 1830s that went nowhere).
I certainly don’t see that the relative ethnic homogeneity of the Scandinavian countries is directly connected to their current combination of non-belief and progressive policies (or to much of anything else), unless you want to argue that the absence of competing groups of religious or ethnic minorities made it easier to be nice. But then you have to explain the sometimes vicious conflicts between Norway, Sweden and Denmark up until around the 1860s.
Chet
My contention is that atheism is as dogmatic a "belief", albeit a more reasoned one, as the belief in a God and the practice of any specific religion.
Quite the contrary. There’s nothing dogmatic about the observation that theists have completely failed to substantiate the existence of God, and therefore belief in God is unsupportable and unfounded.
That’s atheism. On the other hand, agnostics would have us believe that, given one man who says "fairies do not exist", and one man who says "no, fairies do exist", the complete lack of evidence for fairies leaves us completely unable to form a conclusion about which of those two men is more likely correct.
The truth is that atheism is just the reasonable conclusion from the evidence; the agnostics are the dogmatic ones, and their dogma is "you’re not allowed to make up your mind when it comes to God."
Brick Oven Bill
The ‘Homicide Rate by Country’ data posted by Notorious P.A.T. above is interesting. Some datapoints (UN data):
Jamaica: 33 homicides/100,000 population
US: 5 homicides/100,000 population
Germany 3; England 3; France 3; Australia 2; Spain 2
In the US, blacks are 7 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites (Human Rights watch); and whites make up around 40% of the prison population IIRC. Extrapolating the US black crime rate (5 x 7) yield 35, similar to Jamaica. Extrapolating the white crime rate (0.4 x 5) yields 2, similar to the European data.
There is a Ph.D. thesis in that data somewhere. You would never get the degree, but it might be an interesting paper.
Adam
Yeah, the whole "atheism is a belief system, too" thing is a pet peeve of mine. Absent about 250 million loud Christians in this country, I would live my life without having an opinion about God one way or the other, much as I have no opinion about a pair of socks existing on Jupiter or a race of mole people inhabiting the Statue of Liberty.
When it comes to the untestable or supernatural, the burden of proof and belief is on the people who believe, not on everyone else.
TheHatOnMyCat
Miles Davis over Louis Armstrong?
That’s like saying Kenny G over Stan Getz, or over Paul Desmond. Or Steve Allen over Duke Ellington.
Miles Davis over Louis Armstrong?
Great googly moogly. That’s …. just amazing.
Apples and oranges, man. Not even in the ballpark.
At least Miles knew. A quotes site has him saying this:
Get a clue for heaven’s sake.
Notorious P.A.T.
Brick Oven Bill, how did you find that info?
Anyway, though, I’m not sure I see what you’re doing there. Why multiply what you multiplied? And I think if black Americans, at 13% of the population, were 7 times as likely to be incarcerated as white Americans, they would be 91% of prison inmates.
Any statisticians here?
Brick Oven Bill
Rates are independent from absolute numbers P.A.T. The data is on the bottom scale. I’m headed out the door and will check back later.
Garrigus Carraig
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Are you thinking in terms of black and white? Where I grew up, the Irish didn’t like the Italians & v.v. When I was in college, my white girlfriend told me, "I don’t know if my parents will hate you more because you’re black or because you’re Catholic." [I’m no longer Catholic. Still black, though.] —
And of course, "Everybody hates the Jews" (Tom Lehrer).—
Obviously that’s all anecdotal, but it points to the level of diversity the US has & Sweden hasn’t. Whether this is at all a factor in the level of harmony in the respective societies, I don’t know. It jumps out at me, though.
Notorious P.A.T.
Okay, I was wrong: a black American man is 7 times as likely to be in prison as a white American man. All hail Wikipedia!
Notorious P.A.T.
@Garrigus Carraig:
Yes, when I read "diversity" I was thinking about race.
Where you grew up sounds like where my dad grew up: NYC in the 50s.
And if you’re arguing that religion causes more conflict than race. . . well, that’s what I’m arguing, too.
Ash Can
@Jess:
Incorrect. Many religious people believe that "Big Daddy in the Sky" deliberately endowed humans with free will, thus putting exactly this responsibility upon them. Now, if your meaning is actually that the atheist must make moral decisions independent of (any) religious moral teaching, then this would certainly stand to reason.
One of the many negative influences on American society that politicized Christianity (mainly evangelist fundamentalism) has had has been to poison the moral debate. The moral tenets of the vast majority of religious believers, agnostics, and atheists in this country actually have a great deal in common. They’re basically humanist, basically focus on the "Golden Rule," and are as a result eminently practical. Moreover, I don’t really see any evidence that American society in general is any more religious than it was, say, 50 years ago. (If anyone has evidence to the contrary, by all means let me know, and I’m not trying to be snotty; I mean that.) What I do see is that, as always, the squeaky wheel gets the media exposure, and the politicized Christian(ist) sects have been getting plenty of ink over the recent couple of decades. Maybe it’s the overall belief of "live and let live" that prevents other Christian sects from shouting the fundies down with cries of "Blasphemy!" And there’s a lot to be said for that, too; freedom of speech/belief/religion is a way of avoiding sectarian strife. However, too many "religious" wackos have been able to speak and act from public platforms, and we’re all the poorer as a result.
Garrigus Carraig
@Brachiator:
Indeed I have not. The original formulation was that, on the metrics of religiosity & criminality, the US & Sweden are at opposite ends of the scale. I threw in ethnic diversity, where again we’re at opposite ends. It’s a bunch of correlation, but I don’t know whether any of it is significant. I suppose the case of Canada knocks out ethnic diversity as a factor.
Garrigus Carraig
@Notorious P.A.T.: I’m arguing that diversity in ethnicity, race, religion, sect, or clan can lead to social tension and hence crime/violence. I was arguing that Sweden had a homogenous population for an unusually long period, & that that may have something to do with their present-day low crime/violence rates. As I noted above, however, I don’t know what to make of Canada.
Ecks
And once you control for poverty, lets see what remains of that racial disparity.
Krista
I have no idea. I could hypothesize and say that the higher-crime/lower-income places in our cities tend to be smaller and not as isolated from the rest of society, so you tend not to get these situations where someone is born into a violent area, they’re raised that way, and violence is a way of life and a social norm.
Or, due to our lower population density, perhaps people aren’t as violent because we’re not perpetually annoyed from living cheek by jowl with others.
Or, perhaps it’s because we tend to not make as big a deal about gun ownership. Here, a gun is a tool for hunting, but they’re in no way glorified and you don’t see as much of that "from my cold dead fingers" mindset. So here, a gun isn’t something to covet, and owning one does not confer any sort of hierarchal status.
Or maybe we’re just more easygoing, and a lot more willing to live and let live, and to let other people do the same.
bago
A lot of work went into that Objective ministries site. Wow. Orbital Cross Alpha? That’s some funny shit. And the ads, oh the ads! Some of them appear to be real!
TheHatOnMyCat
Most people in most countries seem to be better at that lately than we are.
But we are growing up a little. At least that’s one thing I take from the recent election.
Garrigus Carraig
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Philly in the ’80’s LOL
Shaggy
So, I respectfully and reasonably state my opinion, and at least three times it was subsequently implied that I am absolutely incorrect in an "end of discussion, I am done with you" fashion. No room for debate, really.
Icing on the cake is the manner in which someone almost agreed with me and then felt it necessary to question my professional credentials in a condescending fashion, in order to teach me what lesson, exactly?
It is just the internet. And I am once again reminded why I don’t make a regular practice of commenting or even visiting blogs. This is my last visit to this one too, unfortunately.
I should have done what Blue Raven above suggested, if only she had suggested it before I ever posted!
TheHatOnMyCat
BJ is sort of an ongoing food fight and snark factory. You sort of have to go with the flow. No good deed goes unpunished here. It grows on you after a while.
Hang in there. Don’t take anything personally around here. Just keep plugging away.
Just remember, there is No Whining here. Wear your kevlar jockstrap (or bra) and have fun.
TheHatOnMyCat
Pretty quick for a GBCB (goodbye, cruel blog) but …. come back if you change your mind.
Krista
Seconded, Shaggy. It is rather freewheeling around here. It’s not unusual to be having a very cordial agreement with someone on one thread, while disagreeing with them violently and calling them all sorts of foul names on another thread. Nobody is exempt, not even the blog proprietor. It IS a lot of fun here, and there usually are some really great discussions, but yeah…sometimes it gets a little (or a lot) rowdy.
Worth it, though. Heck, I’m still here after almost 4 years, and I’m an oversensitive wussy if there ever was one.
Brachiator
@Garrigus Carraig:
Ah, OK. Of course, this is not even correlation, it’s just data points. Scandinavians used to be the most lawless and murderous people in the world (the Vikings). Now they are by reputation among the most humanist. Same degree of ethnic homogeneity, whether we are talking about 800 AD or 2008.
And of course, even though Canada has a low crime rate, it has had its share of serial killers, including possibly the most vile married couple murder team in history, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.
Also, one might think that since Israel is ground zero for three religions, it might be crime free (adjusting for political turmoil). But it has its share of vicious criminals, and even (WTF?) Neo-Nazis (largely Soviet born Jews).
Ecks
@Krista: Nah, Canada is, with Australia, one of the most urban countries in the world. Sure the countries are huge, but they’re mostly empty, almost everybody lives in the cities.
While the number of guns per capita aren’t much smaller in Canada than in the USA, there are many fewer handguns, and most of those are kept at shooting ranges (there are a few), or locked up (as law requires) in people’s houses. There aren’t as many guns floating around in people’s back pockets when they get in arguments with their friends (murders are almost entirely committed by people who know each other… strangers killing strangers is rare).
Canada has a better social safety net than the US with less grinding poverty… less permanent underclass with a sense of despair… and there’s less sense of threat too… Less sense that there are people out to get you around every corner, so possibly less reason to have guns (I have a post about this).
Don McArthur
Obscure Tao Te Ching reference FTW!
Krista
That’s definitely a big factor, I’d say. If people lose their tempers with each other, it tends to only result in a fistfight, or someone getting a beer bottle over the head. Occasionally you’ll get a knifing, but rarely fatally. People really just don’t carry guns around with them — it wouldn’t even occur to most people here to keep a gun on them.
That’s what I was trying to say with this:
You said it more succinctly.
TheHatOnMyCat
We do what we can :)
Svensker
There have been studies (too tired to look them up now) on violence in the U.S. and the high correlation violence has to the Scotch-Irish ancestry of settlers, at least in the East Coast and Southern areas. Don’t remember whether the violence followed the S-I as they moved West, or not.
I have no idea whether there’s any correlation with religiousity and Scotch-Irish heritage.
Lack of violence in Sweden seems more connected to stability, homogeneity, and safety nets, than religion. The Swedes used to be very religious Lutherans (my ancestors were booted out for the crime of becoming Baptists) but I don’t think crime in Sweden was high back then.
The study sounds more like a way not to like religion than a serious look at anything (speaking for my Scotch-Irish/Swedish self only).
demimondian
@Notorious P.A.T.: I want to correct a very important misconception. You talk about the Civil War as being a war between white and white. In fact, black men made up 20% of the soldiers in the Union Army, despite being payed less than the white soldiers…and despite making up less than 2% of the North’s population during the war.
What that means is that slaves fled the Confederacy to help bring it down.
david
Perhaps what makes Scandinavian societies different is not that they’re not religious, but the fact that the society as a whole doesn’t coerce conformity. Neither belief nor non-belief are rewarded or punished.
When religion comes close to the seat of power, then non-adherents and non-believers can be either intimidated or marginalized. But if the separation of church and state is successful and lasting, then believers can believe, practitioners can practice, atheists can not believe, and they can all dwell in their respective parts of the "spiritual ecosphere" without wreaking havoc or destruction on one another.
demimondian
@david: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that belief and non-belief are neither rewarded nor punished. There’s a strong pressure to conform to social norms, which, in Northern Europe, run to godlessness, just as there is here, where they run to godfulness.
The 2005 study has been pretty roundly debunked in the literature already. [Snarky observation about counterfactual hypotheses and Michael D. omitted.] When you get down to it, there’s no evidence that religiosity *in itself* either enhances or degrades a society’s net happiness. What has been well-established, though, is that the use of religion and sect to enforce social norms without any other evidence of utility inevitably leads to violence.
Comrade The Other Steve
It is an accurate observation though. I don’t understand this militant atheism crap, as if it’s important to have an organized non-religion?
I’m not a fan of public displays of religiousity, but I also don’t really see the point in public displays of anti-religiousity.
In a sad way many atheists in this country are as bad as the wacko Christianists, they just can’t stop trying to shove things down others throats.
cyntax
@Svensker:
I would definitely cite those factors as way more intrumental than religion, although it occurs to me that without religion, maybe it’s easier to achieve things like social safety nets, since religion can make it easier to demagogue various groups (see Prop 8 in CA). Also, as the homogenity decreases due to immigration, we do see an uptick in hate crimes and the like in Denmark and Sweden.
But at best religion seems like a contributing factor, not a determining one.
demimondian
@cyntax: Conversely, though, France is an aggressively secular state, and the continuing violence in les banlieues is strictly ethnic. The French haven’t needed any religious cover for bigotry.
cyntax
@demimondian:
Good point, I guess one works with what one has, and the French have always been pretty rough with minorities.
The more one pokes at this idea that religion is the root of all societal badness, the less convincing it gets, which is kind of too bad, cause as an atheist, I get so tired sometimes of fielding the "Why yes Virginia, ethics aren’t dependent on religion" argument.
Comrade grumpy realist
Methinks that a lot of the religious lunacy got beat out of the European psyche with the 200 years of religious wars they had (16th-18th centuries.) Didn’t keep them from other Great Unpleasantnesses to fight over (Anti-Semitism, etc.), but religion–I think they all just tired of it.
US has always been a religious nation, formed as it was from the religious nuts who couldn’t stand living in Europe….so they hopped on boats to look for religious freedom and beat the piss out of anyone who believed differently than they did. Good times, good times. Read The Mauve Decade if you want a 1930’s eye view of the religious fervours of the 1890s and earlier. (Also some wonderful comments about the Free Silver movement and the over-the-top rhetoric of any politican, both South and North.)
Ecks
@cyntax: Well said, well said.
So! Are you coming over for the puppy-eating, cross-desecrating, murder and debauchery party on Friday? All the other atheists will be there. Though, frankly I don’t know if I can keep up with the atheist lifestyle much longer. My kidneys ache from the amount of water I’ve had to put through me to keep pissing on these flags and glossy photos of Jesus, and I’m starting to think that all this wanton raping and seducing might be putting me at slightly higher risk of VD than I’d like. Some days I think I may as well convert, if only to save all this damn hassle… It just doesn’t leave much time for chilling out and watching TV and stuff, y’know… I guess I’m getting old.
/snark.
Duke of Earl
I know what you mean, I have to shoo the Atheist Witnesses from my doorstep at least once a month, fuckers won’t take yes for an answer.
demimondian
@cyntax: "You enforce irrational social norms with the excuses you have, not the excuses you wish you had." Gosh, that makes me thinks of something…recent.
@Ecks: Hey, wow. Sounds like fun. It’s a pity I can’t join you; I have a church dinner to attend. We have to finalize our plans for the Final Solution to the Gay Problem, and we’re looking for a good reason to not throw the beige folk in there, too. I’m thinking of getting out; I got badly burned at our last "Intimidate-In". Guess I’m just losing my youthful fervor.
cyntax
@Ecks:
The endless hedonism and debauchery does take its toll, but I’m just happy to have my DVR for recording Venture Bros.
=)
@demimondian:
Yeah, the prejuidices of the sect just down the road are always better…
(I’m stealing the double response–nice idea!)
Ecks
@demimondian: Yeah, I feel your pain. In a truly godless, unfeeling, and sadistic way, of course, but I hear ya.
There’s an old argument that goes like this:
The world has a problem: Most of us are going to hell. Best case scenario, the catholics are right because that way the most people would be saved, next best scenario, possibly the Hindus. But who knows, maybe it’s some remote tribe worshiping their local rock who are right… Anyway, most people clearly have the wrong religion (everyone can’t be right), and this situation is intolerable.
The solution is that every religion should send a representative to a big conference hall, and basically play an enormous game of Russian Roulette until there is only one person left standing. It’s well known that God doesn’t play dice, so everyone in the world should convert to the religion of that one surviving dude.
It occurs to me that statisticians who take their studies to religious levels might want to try to spike the sample by sending an enormous contingent of representatives to the big do, just to spike the odds, but what can you do. We all have our crazy biases.
demimondian
@Ecks:
Now, just hold on one flipping minute there! I can joke about the salvation of my immortal soul, but I won’t let you fuck with my sample. It’s unbiased and representative, I tell you! Un-fucking-biased!
Objective Scrutator
@ Ecks:
I find it quite funny that you ignore "Theists vs. Nontheists" In Prison Populations: A False Dichotomy" in your link. The nonreligious are overrepresented in prisons. (As for minority religions often being imprisoned, this is a general rule, not an absolute. And, at any rate, I would think that Baptists represent less than 50%, or even 30%, of Texas.)
Ecks
@demimondian:
Fischer 9:28: "For the LORD knoweth not skew nor kurtosis, but representeth that which is normal, and which deviates only in the standard way from a mean and median that art the same, and also with the mode."
I sadly stand corrected.
@ Subjective Scrotator: You are apparently that most rare and delicate of species, the fundamentalist right winger who is fond of data and closely parsed social scientific evidence. Believe it or not, I will respect that quite strongly if your devotion to logic and evidence withstands exposure to actual data. Allow me to assist your launch down this road by seeing your one small empirical observation, and raising you large scale, systematically collected and considered, and professionally analyzed data sets:
Here’s one that’s very slightly in your favor:
RELIGION AND CRIME REEXAMINED: THE IMPACT OF RELIGION, SECULAR CONTROLS, AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY ON ADULT CRIMINALITY
Evans et. al. Criminology, Volume 33 Issue 2, Pages 195 – 224
Abstract: Since Hirschi and Stark’s (1969) surprising failure to find religious ("hellfire") effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion’s influence is noncontingent, most have found support—especially among youths—for effects that vary by denomination, type of offense, and social and/or religious context. More recently the relationship has been reported as spurious when relevant secular controls are included. Our research attempts to resolve these issues by testing the religion-crime relationship in models with a comprehensive crime measure and three separate dimensions of religiosity. We also control for secular constraints, religious networks, and social ecology. We found that, among our religiosity measures, participation in religious activities was a persistent and noncontingent inhibiter of adult crime.
Meanwhile, a little less in your favor:
An Examination of a Reciprocal Relationship Between Religiosity and Different Forms of Delinquency Within a Theoretical Model
Benda, B., Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 34, No. 2, 163-186 (1997)
Abstract (relevant bit): Whereas there are reciprocal relationships between religiosity and drug use and religiosity and crime, only the feedback effect of religiosity on alcohol use is significant. These latter findings suggest that future studies need to examine reciprocal relationships and that the relationship between alcohol use and religiosity needs to be reexamined conceptually and empirically in future studies.
So it seems that there is rather mixed support for the contention that religiosity inhibits crime, suggesting that if such effects do exist they are not overwhelmingly strong, or they are moderated by something we don’t understand yet.
I don’t see any evidence at all for your particular notion that local minority religious groups are particularly vulnerable to crime, when controlling for social support and embeddedness… though you are welcome to search out such evidence if you can.
So if you want to argue now that religion is a sole, or even a particularly predominant source of moral behavior, you are skating are rather thin factual ice.
Your move.
slightly_peeved
I’d say both sides of the fence are right about different things on this one.
Not believing in god doesn’t constitute a belief system.
Believing that the scientific method is the only source of objective knowledge about the universe is a philosophical stance. An atheist who proposes this believes in something.
Any atheist who argues, for example, that people who don’t believe in God are more ‘rational’ than people who do is proposing quite a detailed set of philosophical arguments. In this case, they are also weak arguments from a scientific basis, given that one of the big conclusions of cognition research so far is that our introspective view of our own reasoning is very different from what actually goes on. That’s after one actually defines what ‘rational’ thought is without resorting at any stage to axioms of disputable rationality.
Barbara
Gindy had it right way back in Comment 14. My Danish au pair told me long ago that you could understand the Danish "nanny state" only in terms of the fact that, in Denmark, everyone is no less than a third or fourth cousin to everyone else, or so it seems. She said, further, that the influx of immigrant and refugee populations created conflict over the virtues of collective welfare that never arose before — on a much smaller scale, of course, because there is a much smaller minority presence. If anything, Denmark is "post Christian" in the sense that it internalized the best of Jesus’s teaching to take care of one another and to look out for one’s brother or sister. It is definitely not a Pauline kind of Christianity.
Brachiator
@slightly_peeved:
Of course, the "scientific method" does not stipulate that it is the only source of objective knowledge about the universe, and it is also obviously not true that only "atheists" make use of the scientific method.
On the other hand, people who want to argue that faith, belief, religion, spirituality or other varieties of fantasy can explain the world have never been able to demonstrate the adequacy or plausibility of their world view.
Not all atheists argue this. There are any number of reasons why people believe weird things.
It’s really quite simple. Belief in a deity is simply one of many irrational things that people believe. Religion is not a special case.
Chet
I don’t understand this militant atheism crap, as if it’s important to have an organized non-religion?
Only if atheists want rights, I guess.