Correlation after correlation after correlation comes as near proof as you are ever likely to get, however.
What makes you think they are not, or close to it ? Last I heard, the majority of Americans were creationists. More importantly, they are pretty much in control, politically and culturally.
Actually, I consider it a matter of corporate greed; as I’ve heard it, the American “gun culture” was created to sell guns by the Colt corporation; much like DeBeers created the marriage = a diamond ring bit.
mr. jp, my apologies. In reviewing the thread, I see that I overlooked your question: “Could you give us one reason to think that religion tends to be a stabilizing influence?” I had in mind several things. One is the obvious, that most religions teach that violence is a bad answer to social conflict. Murder is almost always taboo. Christianity goes even further, urging its adherents to turn the other cheek. Not everyone (or even most) can live up to that standard, but it’s a positive teaching, tending to inspire restraint. Another is that religion gives many people a level of peace and tranquility, a feeling that things are okay. People who feel that way, IMHO, are less likely to “act out.” Third, for many people, religion is a useful support. There’s a reason, I think, that most alcoholism treatment programs in this country (though by no means all) are religion-based. Faith that the Big Guy is rooting for you and seeing you through tough times helps in enduring the slings and arrows of misfortune.
Mind you, I think secular humanism has similar carrots to offer for why one should abstain from violence. Indeed, I prefer them. But I don’t gainsay that religion works for many people. Stated a little differently, I have problems with religion. A tendancy to inspire violance isn’t one of them.
Der Trihs, I must confess I don’t see it. What “Correlation after correlation after correlation” There’s a correlation between violence and religious belief in
America. There’s also a correlation between violence and at least half a dozen respects in which the US and UK differ. Why is this The One that makes the difference? You must know that multi-causality problems are fiendishly difficult to analyze. Your refusal to acknowledge that here is disingenuous.
As for the rest, have you a cite for the majority of Amercans being creationists of the fundamentalist stripe? Or do you mean simply deists, which is a horse of an entirely different color? And anti-gun control as merely a machination of the gun manufacturers? Balderdash. It’s a consumer-driven, self-determinism movement of the first order. “You can have this gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand.” The guys in marketing ain’t that clever.
I note, by the way, that you carefully cherry-picked a small number of comments to which to respond. My fully-developed position was a good deal more nuanced. I repeat, I’m not an apologist for religiion. But, I would rather see issue joined on substance, not a red herring.
Huh? The fact that more people are becoming superstitious, and that superstition is being spread through mass media, is a “healthy step forward for science”?
Almost everyone thinks murder is bad. With or without religion. Religion is actually one of the few factors that can override this deep moral value.
I agree that the other two arguments are plausible psychological reasons that a religious person would be less violent. But the problem is that the data shows that they are actually more violent. And not just USA vs UK as you bring up, the correlation is also there in northern Europe vs Southern Europe, USA vs Europe, northern USA vs Southern USA, Japan vs Brazil, etc.
(I never meant that there were no arguments that religious people are less violent. I was just pointing out to John Mace that he had not stated any arguments for his side yet.)
According to this site in 1997 44% of Americans believed that “God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” and an additional 39% believed that “Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man’s creation.”
But religion (or at least, many religions) teach that there is a deity to whom one will ultimately be held accountable. This is vastly different from believing that murder is wrong, but that we can ultimately get away with it.
This is wrong. The cultures that are sometimes called “primitive” have high murder rates (I have read), with people killing each other over the slightest insult, etc. They kill for stuff, they kill for mates. They have constant wars between their clans.
If you go back far enough in evolution, you can find our ancestors without religion or even speech kicking the crap out of each other.
This looks to me like a correlation between wealth and education and decreased violence. More educated people are more secular in their outlook, there’s no question about that.
But Russia is a country full of people with a secular outlook that has gone down the shithole in the last two decades, and it’s apparently pretty full of violence and crime.
I see no essential reason why losing one’s religion would tend to make one less violent, only that secularism has happened to be the trend in some of the world’s wealthier places.
If you wouldn’t, then there is no difference. However, a great many people believe that something is wrong and yet commit that act anyway.
That’s why your assertion fails. Sure, many atheists believe that murder is wrong, just as many theists do. That doesn’t necessarily stop them from committing murder, though. Can you honestly say that you have never done anything that you believed to be wrong?
In fact, as we’ve pointed out earlier, the greatest mass murderers in history (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot) were all atheists, and they systematically persecuted theists. Admittedly, correlation is not causation; however, it’s reasonable to surmise that people would be less likely to kill others – especially in such horrendous numbers – if they felt that there was an ultimate authority to whom they would be held responsible.
Well, I have never made an act that I consider as wrong as murder. My point is, the moral distaste for murder is normally so strong that you would not do it anyway. And if you are a christian, but do not feel that bad about murdering people, I’m not sure it will stop you. I mean, look at the catholic priests and the sexual scandal. And the priests are supposed to be particularly devout christians.
mr. jp, thanks for the link. Candidly, I’m surprised. My mother is a Young Earther. I didn’t realize she has so much company. Note, btw, that the 1991 poll supports Aeschines contention that wealth has much to do with religious belief.
None of this, however, undercuts my basic point. Violence is a multi-causality problem. Whether religion is a cause or effect is even open to question. The latter seemed to be true in a tough neighborhood I lived in here in SF a few years ago, i.e., a lot of folks seemed to turn to religion as a sanctuary from the mean streets. Whether that’s broadly true is more than I know.
In any event, I continue to maintain that the atheist community would be better served by focusing on issues like evolution (the main subject of the site you linked) than what is, in effect, an argument ad hominem.
I addressed the “wouldn’t commit murder anyway” objection earlier, but neglected to address the “earthly retribution” part.
Quite simply, earthly retribution isn’t enough to deter some people. Heck, some people fully expect to escape such retribution. That was certainly true of Stalin, Pol Pot and their ilk, who regarded themselves as the ultimate earthly authorities. Many drug lords, especially those in nations with extraordinary corruption levels, also know that they’re basically untouchable by earthly authorities.
Others may regard earthly retribution as a mere slap on the wrist. It’s easy to imagine that some would feel little compunction about robbing a nursery or a convenience story, for example, if the penalties were relatively light. This same person might feel differently if he had a deep and abiding sense of a divine authority to whom he’s ultimately accountable.
The bottom line is that earthly retribution is not necessarily enough to deter people. One might insist that the prospect of divine retribution would not change anyone’s behavior, but I don’t think there’s any way to justify such an unusual claim.
But primitive cultures do/did have religion. Furthermore, you can make a much better case that having a widespread belief in religion is a mark of a more primitive society rather than the other way around.
I don’t know what you are talking about. Do you have any sort of cite as to what our pre-Homo Sapien ancestors were doing to each other and whether they had religion? All of our recorded history is for homo sapiens (i.e., it has nothing to so with evolution) and it is all considerably after religion was widespread. The bible is full of smiting, and rape, and retribution that is condoned by the OT god
I do. Religion can convince people to do things that they would not otherwise do. That can be throwing virgins off the pyramids in Mexico, torturing non-believers during the Inquisition, or deciding to sacrifice one’s own child like Abraham was about to do on god’s request.
Eh. Human nature is to have an “us” and a “them.” Group identity and fear of the other. Religion certainly has well served that aspect of the human condition, but it is not the cause of it. Nationhood. Tribal membership. Skin color. Political group. Could be butter side up vs butter side down - any granfalloon will do.
Eliminate all religion and it wouldn’t change, not for the better and not for the worse. Hitler may have been a Catholic but his atrocities were not motivated by faith.
But strangely, Mafia bosses were religious. They used Saint’s Cards in their initiation ceremonies and contributed to the church. One could argue that Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, are more apt to think that they can “get away with murder” by accepting Christ
More recently, you see people like Abramoff, Skilling, and Ken Lay performing wide spread fraud while still believing that they are good church/temple going folks.
It gets even wierder. Many Christians think that an unbaptized child will not get into heaven while a murderer and child rapist who has accepted Christ will. I don’t really see the deterence factor.
But you do still commit acts that you believe to be wrong, right?
Besides, are you willing to go so far as to suggest that every single murderer in history believed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with taking another person’s life? I think that would be an extraordinarily difficult claim to justify.