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Is faith good for us?

By Phil Zuckerman - posted Wednesday, 22 April 2009


According to Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris's (2003) "Gender Equality Scale," of the ten nations most accepting of gender equality, all but the United States and Colombia were marked by high levels of organic atheism; of the ten least-accepting of gender equality, all were highly religious and had statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism. According to Inglehart et al. in Human Values and Social Change (2003), countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, with the most female members of parliament, tended to be characterised by high degrees of organic atheism, and countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria, and Iran, with the fewest female members in parliament, tended to be highly religious.

The acceptance of gender equality among irreligious nations may be linked to the relative acceptance of homosexuality. Inglehart et al., in Human Beliefs and Values: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook Based on the 1999-2002 Value Surveys (2004), found that, of the 18 nations least likely to condemn homosexuality, all were highly ranked organic-atheistic nations. Conversely, of the 18 nations most likely to condemn homosexuality, all but Hungary were highly religious, with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.

A country's suicide rate stands out as the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicide rates, the nations with the lowest rates of suicide were all highly religious, characterised by extremely high levels of theism (usually of the Muslim and Catholic varieties). Of the ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, five were distinctly irreligious nations ranked among the top 25 nations listed earlier. These five are Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, and Slovenia. It is interesting to note that of the nations currently experiencing the highest rates of suicide-including the five just mentioned-nearly all are former Soviet/communist-dominated societies. (The nations of Scandinavia, where organic atheism is strongest, do not have the highest suicide rates in the world, as is widely thought to be the case.)

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In sum, countries with high rates of organic atheism are among the most societally healthy on earth, while societies with nonexistent rates of organic atheism are among the most destitute. The former nations have among the lowest homicide rates, infant mortality rates, poverty rates, and illiteracy rates and among the highest levels of wealth, life expectancy, educational attainment, and gender equality in the world. The sole indicator of societal health in which religious countries scored higher than irreligious countries is suicide.

Where does the United States fit in all this? Americans are very religious. Many studies have found that only between 3-7 per cent of Americans do not believe in God. Rates of prayer, belief in the divinity of Jesus, belief in the divine origins of the Bible, and rates of church attendance are remarkably robust in the United States, making it the most religious of all Western industrialised nations, with the possible exception of Ireland. When it comes to societal health, the United States certainly fares far better than much of the rest of the world.

According to the United Nations' 2004 "Human Development Index" discussed earlier, the United States ranked eighth. However, when we compare the United States to its peer nations-i.e., developed, industrialised, democratic nations such as Canada, Japan, and the nations of Europe-its standing in terms of societal health plummets. The United States has far higher homicide, poverty, obesity, and homelessness rates than any of its more secular peer nations. It is also the only Western industrialised democracy that is unwilling to provide universal health coverage to its citizens. The fact is that extremely secular nations such as Japan and Sweden are much safer, cleaner, healthier, better educated, and more humane when compared to the United States, despite the latter's exceptionally strong levels of theism.

The information presented in this discussion in no way proves that high levels of organic atheism cause societal health or that low levels of organic atheism cause societal ills such as poverty or illiteracy. The wealth, poverty, well-being, and suffering in various nations are caused by numerous political, historical, economic, and sociological factors that are far more determinant than people's personal belief systems. Rather, the conclusion to be drawn from the data provided above is simply that high levels of irreligion do not automatically result in a breakdown of civilisation, a rise in immoral behaviour, or in "sick societies". Quite the opposite seems to be the case.

Furthermore, religion is clearly not the simple and single path to righteous societies that religious fundamentalists seem to think it is. This fact must be vigorously asserted in response to the proclamations of politically active theists. From small-town school boards to the floor of the Senate, conservative Christians are championing religion as the solution to America's societal problems. However, their pious "solution" is highly dubious and clearly not supported by the best available research of social science.

Belief in God may provide comfort to the individual believer, but, at the societal level, its results do not compare at all favourably with that of the more secular societies. When seeking a more civil, just, safe, humane, and healthy society, one is more likely to find it among those nations ranking low in religious faith - contrary to the preaching of religious folks.

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Acknowledgment from the author: my article is indebted to Gregory S. Paul's important research correlating rates of belief/nonbelief with various measures of societal health. Reprinted with permission from Free Inquiry, the magazine of the Council for Secular Humanism.



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About the Author

Phil Zuckerman is an associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College in California. He is the author of Invitation to the Sociology of Religion (Routledge, 2003) and is currently writing a book on secularization in Scandinavia. His lates book is Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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