Goose the Blog 2.0

Here are a couple of interesting articles on religiousity and atheism:

Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies¹

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional. None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly religious U.S. is an outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from less theistic but otherwise socially comparable secular developing democracies. In other cases, the correlations are strongly graded, sometimes outstandingly so.

If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

The Vagaries of Religious Experience

Our ability to find and embrace the most rewarding view of the circumstances that befall us is nothing short of remarkable, which is why people adapt so quickly and so well to almost every form of tragedy and trauma. When people lose someone they love, they feel sad — but research shows that very few become chronically depressed, and most experience only low levels of short-lived distress. More than half of all Americans experience a traumatic event such as rape, physical assault, or natural disaster, but very few ever require professional assistance. As a leading group of trauma researchers recently noted, "Resilience is often the most commonly observed outcome trajectory following exposure to a potentially traumatic event." Indeed, a significant portion of those who survive major traumas not only do well, but claim that their lives were enhanced by the experience.

Fine. But what does any of this have to do with belief in God? As it turns out, most people do not know that their brains are designed to find and hold on to the most rewarding view of things. Most of the business brains do they do quietly, in the background, offstage, where we can't observe it. As such, we are surprised when experiences we once feared and avoided turn out to be much less awful than we had anticipated, and we are deeply surprised when they turn out to be blessings in disguise. Who knew that widowhood or divorce would be an opportunity to meet the partner of our dreams? Who knew that a heart attack or a prison sentence would lead us to refocus our lives and concentrate on the things that matter? And who knew — when we were making that agonizing decision between the Honda and the Mazda, between Cincinnati and Chicago, between the ballpark and the ballet or the asparagus and the artichoke — that this one would turn out be so obviously better than that?

Surprises such as these are curious events, and curious events beg for explanation. The proper explanation is that we have brains that avidly pursue the most rewarding view of things. The other explanation is providence. If there is a God who watches over us, who guides our hand when we are uncertain, who leads us to places we might not otherwise go, then unanticipated good fortune makes perfect sense. Things turn out for the best because someone who knows what is best for us is making them turn out that way.

-----

1. Long time readers of GtB might remember "hell is other robots" in which a Federal Reserve study that purported to show that belief in Hell correlated to higher per capita GDP was debunked. The original article has subsequently been retracted and highly modified, about which G. S. Paul writes: "Events surrounding this study were peculiar. Placed in a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis publication, the data plots were later apologetically withdrawn by Kliesen and Schmid."