Terry wrote:dyslexia wrote: Inn a 2005 study published in the Journal of Religion & Society "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies" independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation between religiosity (measured by belief in god, biblical literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health (measured by rates of homicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy, sexually transmitted diseases and teen abortions and pregnancies) in 18 developed democracies. "In general, higher rates of belief in a worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. Paul found Indeed the US scores the highest in religiosity and the highest (by far) in homicides, STD's, abortions and teen pregnancies.
Jeremiah Project wrote:Two years earlier, the cover of U.S. News & World Report asked "Can Churches Cure America's Social Ills?," and the story answered largely in the affirmative.
While such "faith factor" journalism is out ahead of the empirical research on religion and social action, it is hardly pure hype. As UCLA's James Q. Wilson has succinctly summarized the small but not insignificant body of credible evidence to date, "Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance."
So who do we believe? Is religiosity a good thing for society, or detrimental?
And if churches can cure social ills, why haven't they? Perhaps they are just too busy fleecing their flocks, harassing heathens and molesting minors.
I am impressed by the time you took to analyze the statistical data utilized in the Jeremiah Project.
I don't think it is necessary to denigrate the churches in order to have a discussion on this, however. Why should the Atheists or anti-religion set care if kids go to church and that this activity produces lower levels of truancy, delinquency, criminal behavior? If true, what reasonable people would not acknowledge that as a good thing?
I have seen many studies produced by those hostile to religion that try to make the case that a belief in God produces more anti-social behavior. But I think they might be stretching it considering that more than 90% of Americans profess belief in some kind of deity. It would naturally follow that a good percentage of convicted criminals would also believe in some kind of deity.
As for curing social ills, that is not what any church I have ever attended has been about. At the same time, a few decades ago when the large majority of Americans were affiliated with a religious denomination and a majority of Americans did attend church at least on Easter and Christmas--perhaps this was more the case in small town America than in the big cities--there did seem to be far fewer social ills.
Maybe the Jeremiah Project will take on a study about that sometime in the future.