Why can't we all be Japanese?

Feb 13 22:50 UTC 2006

Why can't we all be Japanese?  

Religion fosters bad behavior

By  Martin Foreman

Several weeks ago, a ground-breaking study on religious belief and social 
well-being was published in the Journal of Religion & Society. Comparing 
eighteen prosperous democracies from the US to New Zealand, author Gregory 
S Paul quietly demolished the myth that faith strengthens society.

Drawing on a wide range of studies to cross-match faith measured by belief 
in God and acceptance of evolution with homicide and sexual behavior, Paul 
found that secular societies have lower rates of violence and teenage 
pregnancy than societies where many people profess belief in God.

Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. 
Over eighty percent accept evolution and fewer than ten percent are 
certain that God exists. Despite its size over a hundred million people 
Japan is one of the least crime-prone countries in the world. It also has 
the lowest rates of teenage pregnancy of any developed nation.

(Teenage pregnancy has less tragic consequences than violence but it is 
usually unwanted, and it is frequently associated with deprivation among 
both mothers and children. In general, it is a Bad Thing.)

Next in line are the Norwegians, British, Germans and Dutch. At least 
sixty percent accept evolution as a fact and fewer than one in three are 
convinced that there is a deity. There is little teenage pregnancy , 
although the Brits, with over 40 pregnancies per 1,000 girls a year, do 
twice as badly as the others. Homicide rates are also low - around 1-2 
victims per 100,000 people a year.

At the other end of the scale comes America. Over fifty percent of 
Americans believe in God, and only 40 percent accept some form of 
evolution (many believe it had a helping hand from the Deity). The US has 
the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and homicide rates are at least five 
times greater than in Europe and ten times higher than in Japan.

All this information points to a strong correlation between faith and 
antisocial behavior a correlation so strong that there is good reason to 
suppose that religious belief does more harm than good.

At first glance that is a preposterous suggestion, given that religions 
preach non-violence and sexual restraint. However, close inspection 
reveals a different story. Faith tends to weaken rather than strengthen 
peoples ability to participate in society. That makes it less likely they 
will respect social customs and laws.

All believers learn that God holds them responsible for their actions. So 
far so good, but for many, belief absolves them of all other 
responsibilities. Consciously or subconsciously, those who are born again 
or chosen have diminished respect for others who do not share their sect 
or their faith. 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.

The more people prioritize themselves rather than those around them, the 
weaker society becomes and the greater the likelihood of antisocial 
behavior. Hence gun laws which encourage Americans to see each other not 
as fellow human beings who deserve protection, but as potential aggressors 
who deserve to die. And hence a health care system which looks after the 
wealthy rather than the ill.

As for sex Faith encourages ignorance rather than responsible behavior. In 
other countries, sex education includes contraception, reducing the risk 
of unwanted pregnancies. Such an approach recognizes that young people 
have the right to make their own choices and helps them make decisions 
that benefit society as a whole. In America faith-driven abstinence 
programs deny them that right As a Christian I will only help you if you 
do what I say. The result is soaring rates of unwanted pregnancy and 
sexually transmitted infections.

Abstinence programs rest on the same weak intellectual foundation as 
creationism and intelligent design. Faith discourages unprejudiced 
analysis. Reasoning is subverted to rationalization that supports rather 
than questions assumptions. The result is a self-contained system that 
maintains an internal logic, no matter how absurd to outside observers.

The constitutional wall that theoretically separates church and state is 
irrelevant. Religion has overwhelmed the nation to permeate all public 
discussion. Look no further than Gary Bauer, a man who in any other 
western nation would be dismissed as a fanatic and who in America is 
interviewed deferentially on prime time television.

Despite all its fine words, religion has brought in its wake little more 
than violence, prejudice and sexual disease. True morality is found 
elsewhere. As UK Guardian columnist George Monbiot concluded in his review 
of Gregory Pauls study, if you want people to behave as Christians 
advocate, you should tell them that God does not exist.

I might express that another way. The flip side of Monbiots argument is 
that God would be an atheist

This column was reprinted November 30, 2005 in Humanist Network News.

response 2 of 121:

Feb 14 01:08 UTC 2006

>Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. 
>...fewer than ten percent are certain that God exists. Despite its size
>over a hundred million people Japan is one of the least crime-prone
>countries in the world.

Japan is a heavily Buddhist country (one can be Buddhist and atheist [at
least as we commonly define such] simultaneously).  Buddhism is a
religion.  How does this fit with the article's contention that religion
equals bad behavior, if Japan is tops in good behavior?

Much of the rest of the article is a stretch, too. 

response 4 of 121:

Feb 14 02:26 UTC 2006

Re. 1:  about 0.7% Japanese people are Christrian.

Re. 2:  The only thing thin in this item is your wrists.

Less than half the people in Japan profess to be Buddhist.

As well, the article doesn't contend ANYTHING.  It merely reports the results
of a peer-reviewed, scientific study.  If you had read either the study or
the article, you would have realized that what is at issue here is a
correlation between believing in a deity and antisocial behaviour.  It is only
tangentially about religion.

response 6 of 121:

Feb 14 03:52 UTC 2006

Who said these people don't have statistical training? One of my friends
had to learn a great deal about statistics in order to complete her
masters and edd in .

response 8 of 121:

Feb 14 04:06 UTC 2006

I feel as skeptical of this study as I would of one from a consortium of
tobacco companies "proving" that smoking doesn't cause cancer. Find a
similar study from the Southern Baptist Convention, or something like
that, and I'll be more likely to accept it without seeing all the data
myself.

response 10 of 121:

Feb 14 07:23 UTC 2006

Go ahead, KLG, try writing something in chemical engineering. Then try to 
get it published. Some "journal that apparently does not have high 
standards for articles it publishes" would be OK.

All the study did was point out some factual observations. No deep 
training in statistical methods is required for that. The actual causes 
for the apparent correlations might be more complex than Foreman makes it, 
but the facts still speak for themselves. (Probably crime is so much lower 
in Japan because of the closeness of their families, although his also 
correlates with belief in dieties.)

response 12 of 121:

Feb 14 13:37 UTC 2006

How are the statistics for Islamic countries like Iran and Saudi 
Arabia?  These are among the most strongly religion oriented nations in 
the world.  The author said he was studying the effect of religion on 
crime and sexual behavior, so it would seem these types of examples 
would be important for his study.

response 14 of 121:

Feb 14 14:43 UTC 2006

In #13: Is that of *stated* religious belief? Because anyone can say they are
anything -- just like in our political system I could say I'm a Democrat on a
survey and then vote Republican or Libertarian or something else.

response 16 of 121:

Feb 14 17:03 UTC 2006

Re #14: what else could you possibly measure?  Can you suggest a practical
procedure for determining whether someone is "really" a Buddhist, or a
Lutheran, or whatever?  Or is this going to be another "no true Scotsman"
type argument?

response 18 of 121:

Feb 14 17:43 UTC 2006

this wasn't an opinion poll of individuals, but a global study based on
national statistics. and I only read about it in the paper and thought it was
relevant to the discussion. the results did not surprise me in the least
though.

response 20 of 121:

Feb 14 18:47 UTC 2006

Also the negative stats about america are no doubt as a result not of 
americans being too religious, or not religious enough, but just of being 
the most ethnically/racially diverse country in the world.  maybe we'd 
have a lower homicide/pregnancy rates if we were a whole country of just 
japanese people.  

response 22 of 121:

Feb 14 19:02 UTC 2006

Daniel Dennet in his new book (mentioned elsewhere) brings up the point that
more people "believe in belief" than actually believe in gods. 

response 24 of 121:

Feb 14 20:28 UTC 2006

Interesting that klingon thinks a person's religious identity is determined
by their church attendence. I doubt that's how Christ would make such a
determination.