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| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
pfff. like I'm gonna read that!
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Well you don't have to read it, I'll highlight the more salient statistical results:
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[13] Among the developing democracies absolute belief in God, attendance of religious services and Bible literalism vary over a dozenfold, atheists and agnostics five fold, prayer rates fourfold, and acceptance of evolution almost twofold. Japan, Scandinavia, and France are the most secular nations in the west, the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds (Bishop; PEW). Prosperous democracies where religiosity is low (which excludes the U.S.) are referred to below as secular developing democracies.
[14] Correlations between popular acceptance of human evolution and belief in and worship of a creator and Bible literalism are negative (Figure 1). The least religious nation, Japan, exhibits the highest agreement with the scientific theory, the lowest level of acceptance is found in the most religious developing democracy, the U.S.
[15] A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows (Figure 2). The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the secular developing democracy norm. Mass student murders in schools are rare, and have subsided somewhat since the 1990s, but the U.S. has experienced many more (National School Safety Center) than all the secular developing democracies combined. Other prosperous democracies do not significantly exceed the U.S. in rates of nonviolent and in non-lethal violent crime (Beeghley; Farrington and Langan; Neapoletan), and are often lower in this regard. The United States exhibits typical rates of youth suicide (WHO), which show little if any correlation with theistic factors in the prosperous democracies (Figure 3). The positive correlation between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality is remarkable, especially regarding absolute belief, and even prayer (Figure 4). Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise (Figure 5), especially as a function of absolute belief. Denmark is the only exception. Unlike questionable small-scale epidemiological studies by Harris et al. and Koenig and Larson, higher rates of religious affiliation, attendance, and prayer do not result in lower juvenile-adult mortality rates on a cross-national basis.<6>
[16] Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been curtailed in all prosperous democracies (Aral and Holmes; Panchaud et al.), rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular developing democracies (Figure 6). At all ages levels are higher in the U.S., albeit by less dramatic amounts. The U.S. also suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, which are starting to rise again as the microbe’s resistance increases (Figure 7). The two main curable STDs have been nearly eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia. Increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high in the U.S. (Figure 8). Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the quantitative data. Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped in the developing democracies (Abma et al.; Singh and Darroch), but rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline has been more modest (Figure 9). Broad correlations between decreasing theism and increasing pregnancy and birth are present, with Austria and especially Ireland being partial exceptions. Darroch et al. found that age of first intercourse, number of sexual partners and similar issues among teens do not exhibit wide disparity or a consistent pattern among the prosperous democracies they sampled, including the U.S. A detailed comparison of sexual practices in France and the U.S. observed little difference except that the French tend - contrary to common impression - to be somewhat more conservative (Gagnon et al.).
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Well, traditionally, I think the Japanese were largely monothestic in their beliefs that their emperor was God. In contemporary times, I think it is a rather secular state, and in the study, according to figure 1 it appears to be the most secular society.
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Then the author should have examined:
A) Counties with in a state of the union and compare and contrast those. i.e. the 254 counties of Texas, etc.
B) The USA states against each other
C) Canadian Proviences
D) French Proviences
E)... you get the idea. Compare each society to itself and then find it there is a common thread or not... of course even this could have many other factors that you can't account for but it would defintely repersent a better attempt.
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Yes I agree that would be an excellent follow-up study.
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I know it is, I made it to paradoy the conclusion made by the author of this research,
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How many times do I have to point out what I said in my first sentence? I said ignore the author's assumptions and conclusions. I said, pay attention to the statistics.
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Again the sampling size is so small and the possibility of so many other accountable and unaccountable factors could effect the results in this study. If you are to make the statement that you hav edone in the title of this thread, then a study similar to one I outlined above would either validate or refute it. But comparing 20 something different western societies to try and find if religious participation effects morality without mitigating key factors such as GDP per cap., income disparity, culture, and so on is well, bullock. |
Teehee, the sample size is too small? You would be correct if we were making conclusions about a general population from a simple random sample ... we would need a population of about 30. However, in this case, the sample was the entire population. Which means that it has no standard deviation of error, as a matter of fact, it's not even a statistic ... it's a parameter for the population. I wasn't aware that you wanted to get so technical, however, I would be willing to rephrase my thread title to make it as accurate as possible: "It is a matter of fact that when comparing prosperous democratic nations, or societies if you will, on the planet Earth, there is a positive correlation between religiosity and amoral behavior."
Now, take that however you would like, but it's a parameter. The study didn't simply look at the US vs. everyone else. In most instances the US was considered an outlier. The study analyzed the degree to which each prosperous democracy had faith in god, faith in creationism, attended religous services, prayed regularly, were agnostic/atheist, and statistically compared these metrics to amoral behavior such as homicide, STDs, abortion rates, etc., and what resulted was that there was a statistical correlation between the degree of religiosity in comparing most of these countries, except when noted, and amoral behavior ... not JUST the US vs. all of these countries. Now perhaps there is some ancillary explanation for why there is a correlation. However, I feel comfortable stating that religiosity does NOT make a country more moral on the sole basis that even among the relative secular countries, there are no negative correlations between religion and amoral behavior.
Notice I never implied causuality in any way whatsoever. Perhaps amoral behavior begets religiosity instead of the other way around as the author contends. Makes sense to me ... however I have an unsupported belief that it is a circular relationship in that eventually religion begets amoral behavior  .
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Retro ...
Last edited by occrider on Sep-29-2005 at 06:34
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