Since no one bothered to read in my last thread how secular societies have lower rates of violence and teenage pregnancy than societies where many people profess belief in God. I figured I'd give those among us who are religious the benefit of the doubt that the post was lost in the haze of the argument.
So, I thought I'd post it again here.
http://humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=219&article=7
This statement rings the most true as far as I'm concerned when talking to believers... "the result is a self-contained system that maintains an internal logic, no matter how absurd to outside observers".
I also found this statement interesting... "Convinced that only the Bible offers "truth", they lose their intellectual curiosity and their ability to reason. Their priority becomes not the world they live in but themselves".
Losing intellectual curiosity, that I see among the religious I talk to everyday.
Anyway, the point of my last thread is that religion hinders human growth on not only a personal level but culturally...
Study shows more violence in religious societes
by dawg 66 Replies latest jw friends
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dawg
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JeffT
I'd like to see his actual data. Just from what I saw, I think there are a lot of factors besides religion (or lack there of) at work here. In particular he says that Japan ranked high in atheism and lack of violence than the other societies he measured. Japan is a very different place from western societies. And they are still a very religious people. If society A is 1% atheist and society B is 3% atheist, yes society B is three times as atheist as A, but I doubt that would account for the difference between the two.
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Satanus
Perhaps, it's the violent people who like to have religion. United states, afghanastan, prison populations... I wonder how religious south african blacks are. I understand that sa has the highest crime rate in the world.
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FlyingHighNow
It's very rare that you can find a society that is free from religion. And when you do find one, it's usually somewhere like North Korea where you are forced by the government to behave and the leader effectively has you worshipping him.
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DanTheMan
It's very rare that you can find a society that is free from religion.
White Europeans have become all but entirely secular. But, the birth rate among them is not enough to sustain the population. Freedom from religion comes with a price - an awareness of the maddening pointlessness of life, and hence little desire to reproduce.
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FlyingHighNow
Depression is a bitch when it comes to libido.
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MissingLink
It has nothing to do with depression. Non-believers are less likely to suffer from depression. And it has nothing to do with percentage of theists/atheists. The white population in general is reproducing far less than non-white. Current speculation is that this is economically driven. It is tricky to get meaningful information out of simple statistics. As someone else said, there can be other influences at play as well. Correlation does not necessarily indicate causation. That said, the percentage of prison populations that are atheist is a very interesting statistic. Although also easy to misinterpret unless you also throw in education. Education + Atheism = Don't end up in jail. My point is that part of this disparity is due to educational differences in the different societies. And then there is of course the correlation with better education and higher percentage of atheism. Education is the key to a happy, trouble free, and religion free life.
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changeling
I'd love to move to Sweden. They have more atheists and less crime than just about any other country. They also have more people with advanced degrees than most. So, you might say: more education leads to atheism which leads to peace.
changeling :)
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dawg
You guys are way off base... you have no studies that show that these countries are depressed...
One of you even said this about Japan..."And they are still a very religious people"..
No they're not, the study showed that 90% of the Japanese didn't believe in God. Grasping at straws is all you're doing; religion makes people depressed since no one can live up to the standards of sheep herders that were homophobic loons..
Look, the studies prove what I was saying, and that's that religious countries produce worse societies than non religious. It said nothing about depression, nor reproduction, and it didn't even mention North Korea.
Why is it you guys can't see everyday what a pile of crap religion is? Don't you folks read the newspapers or keep up with current events? -
changeling
Darlin, I think most of us are agreeing with you...